


Dizzy

by de_la_cruz87



Category: 13 Reasons Why (TV)
Genre: Angst, Description of Domestic Violence, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Platonic Male/Male Relationships, Season 2, description of Rape, description of animal cruelty, description of drug use, description of sexual assault of a minor, description of underage prostitution, four little peas in a messed up pod, interconnected One shots, will add character tags as they come up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:01:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 25
Words: 212,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21826369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/de_la_cruz87/pseuds/de_la_cruz87
Summary: A series of interconnected one-shots that explore how Justin, Bryce, Monty and Chloe got twisted up into such a destructive knot.
Comments: 246
Kudos: 357





	1. Ain't Seen Shit

The room was dark and quiet, and Monty slapped his hand down over his phone to muffle the sound of it vibrating across the surface of the bedside cabinet.

Eyeing the door, which stood ajar – those were the rules, since he couldn’t be trusted – he waited, counting out five slow breaths, then thumbed the home button to power up the screen as he tilted it toward his face, still half buried in his pillow. The text was short enough that he could read it from the push notification.

_i need you ___

__The room went dark again as the lock screen clicked automatically back into place, the time flicking to life a moment later._ _

__**23  
47** _ _

__Quietly, Monty pushed back the blanket and sat up. He could hear the muted mutter of voices from the television in the living room and see the changing scenes in the flickering light on the wall outside of the door, but that didn’t guarantee anything. Cautiously, he climbed from the narrow single mattress beneath the window, and padded barefoot to the door, hesitating at the edge of the shadow that lay across the threshold. Slowing his breathing until it was shallow and soundless, he waited, listening. Finally, in a break between adverts, he heard the low rumble of a throaty snore._ _

__Easing the door open, he leaned out and peered down the hall. Over the arm of the couch in the living room, he could see his father’s feet propped up on a stack of cheap cushions. Squinting along the distance of the hallway, he waited for the scene to come into better focus – the work boots kicked off at the end of the couch, the bottle of cheap bourbon beside them, empty except for a finger of liquid amber in the bottom. The beer he had thrown back at the pool house earlier that evening felt a little heavier in his stomach as he eyed the bottle._ _

__Monty turned away from the door and bent to pick up the sweatpants he had worn to practice that afternoon, tugging them on and then shoving his feet into his unlaced sneakers. Tucking his phone into his left hip pocket and carefully – quietly – palming the keys on the bedside cabinet before slipping them into the other, he climbed onto the mattress and, with familiar caution, eased the window pane up and open. It had taken a lot of practice, but he knew the manoeuvre perfectly now – one hand held the pane, frustratingly squeaky and tight in some places but loose enough that it wouldn’t hold aloft on its own – while he ducked and swivelled and twisted his way out, gently lowering it back into place once he had both feet on the ground._ _

__The yard was as empty and barren as always, full of shifting shadows underneath the cloudy night sky, as Monty trotted, quickly but warily, to the back fence. In the scant moonlight, it was difficult to spot where the wooden palings and cross-supports had been worn soft and tarnished over time, but he knew the climb so well that he could have managed it blind, his hands finding each hold and his shoes soundlessly levering against the palings as he hoisted himself up and over. The other side required more caution – sometimes a hopefully placed pot plant that needed a little more sun or kitschy garden ornament appeared unexpectedly since he had last made the familiar crossing – but tonight the way was clear, other than a garden hose left unspooled across the length of the yard._ _

__The lawn underfoot softened his steps to silence as Monty eyed the sliding patio door, dark and motionless, on the approach to the second window on the left. The thin, milky moonlight reflected on the surface of the glass as the hinged pane swung open. He hesitated there, one hand on the edge of the frame – sometimes, this was as far as they went, when the need wasn’t so great that it couldn’t be dealt with over the threshold of a windowsill. The room beyond was murky with shadow, only a sliver of dim light beneath the closed door on the opposite wall visible, until the girl leaned forward, her hair painted in shades of gold and silver in the diffused light._ _

__“What are you waiting for?” Chloe asked, concern edging her whisper. She waved one small, delicate hand, beckoning him to hurry. “I’m freaking out.”_ _

__Monty shrugged one shoulder, a feeble effort to calm the distress that drew tight lines around her eyes and, with graceless practicality, clambered inside._ _

__Chloe’s room looked the way he imagined most teenage girl’s rooms must – a double bed with a flowery bedspread and piles of different shaped pillows, none practical for sleeping or any other use that he could determine. A desk in one corner, a small space cleared for homework – a stack of thick text books and a closed laptop computer - and the rest crowded with magazines and makeup and glass bottles of perfume, the edges of the vanity mirror hung with strands of jewellery and trinkets. The wardrobe doors stood open, the hangers full of dresses and skirts, blouses and cardigans, and the chair in the corner was draped with her Liberty sweatpants, and the pale green and white uniform that she wore working behind the check-out at the Walplex nights and weekends to fund all the rest of her pretty, delicate belongings. Strings of photographs hung across one wall, pictures of her sister and her mother and her friends, cheer camp, summer on the docks, her and Bryce._ _

__Chloe perched on the edge of the bed in a blush pink cotton pyjama set, wringing her hands, and Monty hesitated by the window, waiting for her to say something. There had been a time when it was easier than this – when there had been no second guessing and no hesitation, when neither had felt freer than when they were with each other – but things were different, now._ _

__When the distressed silence became so thick he could barely breathe, he gave in, shrugging casually._ _

__“What’s up?”_ _

__She looked at him as if she had just remembered that he was in the room, her shoulders drawn in worry and her lips pressed into an anxious line._ _

__“The Baker trial’s going ahead.”_ _

__Monty’s face went still and, after a moment, he moved to sit on the corner of the bed._ _

__“I overheard Tom telling Mom. They’re starting tomorrow,” her voice was tense, desperate, as she briefly explained what her mother’s latest boyfriend – an awkward, plain divorcee who worked as a bailiff at the county courthouse – had said. “The Bakers are going to try to prove that Liberty let kids bully her, target kids that they think the school should have stopped. Kids that hurt her.”_ _

__Monty huffed an exhale, thinking of the Hot List, the Winter Formal._ _

__The hot tub._ _

__“Shit.”_ _

__“Yeah, no shit, ‘shit’,” Chloe shook her head, throwing her hands up. “I don’t even…” she despaired for the words. “I mean, it’s fucking sad, what happened, but I don’t know what they want.” She turned to him, searching his face for understanding. “She’s dead. Nothing’s going to bring her back. What do they _want_?”_ _

__He knew what she meant – she knew that he did, better than anyone._ _

__Why did the Bakers care so much?_ _

__Monty shrugged uselessly._ _

__“The fuck should I know?” he muttered, his eyes shifting restlessly as his mind raced._ _

__He thought of Bryce and the foul fucking mood that he had been in earlier that evening – his expression stormy and his temper simmering barely below the surface, the mask of a gracious host stretched over the considerable bulk of his rage so tight that it was moments away from tearing – the reason why now clear. He thought of Hannah Baker – dramatic emotion and need amped up to one hundred, uncontainable and bursting out of the girl. He thought of Justin Foley – disappeared five months now without word or trace – and his shoulders drew uncomfortably tight at the familiar but unwelcome pang of loss that sparked behind his ribs, that he was powerless to snuff out, no matter how hard he concentrated on feeling any other way about the boy with the dimpled grin._ _

__He couldn’t lose Bryce, too._ _

__“You understand how bad this is, right?” Chloe asked, hesitating when Monty’s gaze dropped to his hands where they rested in his lap at the implication that he couldn’t understand – didn’t understand anything; a tried and true tactic from Bryce’s playbook. She turned toward him on the bed, bending her knee and tucking her foot underneath her. She resisted the urge to reach out and offer a reassuring touch. She knew him well enough to understand that for him, touch was a fickle thing, ranging from a playful nudge to a furiously swung fist to the face, and his reactions were equally unpredictable – a touch that he leaned into one day could be met with a flinch or a kneejerk, defensive bristling the next. Pressing back the anxious fear gnawing at her throat, the claxon in the back of her mind, urging her to grab him and plead _do something_ , Chloe softened her expression, waiting until he met her eye again._ _

__“I don’t just mean for Bryce. I mean for us. You and me.”_ _

__Of course, he did. He understood more than any of them._ _

__Losing Bryce wasn’t just losing Bryce._ _

__Losing Bryce was losing everything._ _

__“I tried calling and texting him, but he’s ignoring me,” Chloe shrugged, an unconvincing attempt to brush off the rejection even as she struggled to keep the despair from creeping into her voice, frightened of infecting him with it. “He has to know,” she said, and it sounded like a question, her tone entirely unconvinced, even to her own ears. “He must know how serious this is.”_ _

__“He didn’t mention it,” Monty offered, shaking his head. “He was in a shitty fucking mood, but he never said anything. D’you think-“ he paused, biting back the words that wanted to follow, shoving them from the queue and replacing them carefully. “Do you think they’ll bring up that party? At Jessica Davis’ house?”_ _

__Chloe shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. Probably? She made a police report, right?” She raked her hands through her hair, her lower lip quivering involuntarily for a moment before she sank her teeth into it. “I mean, I guess if there was anything in it, if she really believed he did-“ she swallowed thickly, balked at every word that came to mind, eventually settled on “ _that_ , they would have arrested him.” That uncertainty again, creeping beneath the words even as she tried to force it back. “And then there’s all those rumours about the tapes, what Hannah said…”_ _

__Monty propped his elbows on his knees and steepled his fingers, then lowered his head to rest his forehead on them. He felt entirely unequipped to deal with this. He was used to being afraid – he knew the alphabet of fear back to front, from nerve fraying anxiety to gut churning dread to violent terror – but this was new. He had debt, miles and miles of it, more weight than he could bear and more than he could ever repay, and now that obligation was locked in step with raw, visceral fear._ _

__For years, he had teetered on the precipice of losing everything, but it had always been on him – he was the one tight-rope walking to maintain the precarious grip he had on survival. It was up to him to keep his balance - to do everything he could to keep from falling. Now, someone else had lit a fire under that rope, without any regard for what the consequences would be, and the smell of smoke choked him to panic. He couldn’t let anyone – least of all some kids who thought they had been wronged, thought they knew what it was to struggle, thought they understood what it was to _hurt_ \- wrest his entire life from his grasp and toss it carelessly into the fathomless void that yawned beneath his feet. _ _

__If Bryce went down, he did, too._ _

__And Chloe._ _

__Monty turned to her, raising his eyebrows earnestly and searching her anxious expression._ _

__Despite that his father thought and called him lazy and careless, he had never been afraid of work. For the right reason, he would put every shred of passion and loyalty in him into what was necessary, shoving down the secondary fear and instinct for self-preservation and objective morality to muffled whispers, beating them into submission and locking them away for as long as it took to do what had to be done. Once given command, he would do what he was told - and more, to be certain of the outcome._ _

__“What do we do?” he asked._ _

__Chloe took a long breath and held it. The question she had been grappling with for hours since Tom had come by and stood in the living room, drinking a beer and awkwardly complimenting Amelia on her drawing, talking to her mother across the hallway while he waited for her to finish getting ready to leave for dinner, resetting her makeup and giving her hair another coat of hairspray in front of the bathroom mirror, raising his voice over the rasp of the aerosol so that Chloe had been able to hear him from her bedroom. Part of her desperately wanted to do nothing – to ignore it, pretend that it wasn’t happening. She was practiced at it – they both were – together, they might be able to create some version of normalcy and live there, instead of here. Another part of her, smaller, had hoped that he would answer that question, even as unlikely as she knew that to be. For eleven years, he had been bigger than her and stronger than her and older than her, but had deferred to her, unquestioningly. He was a bred beta, and any instinct or desire he might have had to forge ahead, to lead, had been belted and berated out of him._ _

__Part of her knew – there was only one answer._ _

__After a few moments of steeling her resolve behind the guise of consideration, Chloe nodded to herself._ _

__“We have to stop them testifying,” she said, and Monty mirrored her nod, waiting for further explanation. Chloe looked across the room at her shadowy reflection in the mirror on the vanity, considering. “We have to make testifying seem worse than staying out of it.”_ _

__Not even a hint of hesitation registered in the boy’s eyes. Threats were a language Monty was fluent in._ _

__“OK,” he said. “Who’s first?”_ _

__Chloe, anticipating the reaction, answered flippantly, a poorly executed attempt to make the answer seem unimportant._ _

__“Tyler Down.”_ _

__Immediately, the bridge of the boy’s nose knotted and his brows drew together in a frown._ _

__“Of course it fucking is,” Monty said, scowling, his eyes darkening as well-practiced hate floated to the surface of his expression. “The fuck does he know about anything?”_ _

__Chloe stood and crossed to the closet, where she peeled off her pink cotton pyjama set, tossing them onto the chair in the corner on top of her uniform. She was glad for the dark, and the fact that it hid her relief, masking it as careless confidence._ _

__“They’ll get him to talk about bullying at Liberty,” she explained, bending to tug a pair of black leggings from a low drawer and pull them on. “They’ll want him to say how the athletes get away with whatever they like.” She reached for a tank top next, slipping it on over her peach and hot pink bralette, one of Bryce’s favourites. “Talk about the bullying he’s seen.”_ _

__Behind her, Monty scoffed._ _

__“Fuck him. We’ll see how much he says with no fucking teeth.”_ _

__Chloe turned a look over her shoulder. He was watching her, but not the way Bryce would have, gaze lascivious with open, unashamed desire. Monty’s eyes followed her face, attentive, waiting obediently._ _

__“That would kind of prove the point,” she reminded him, reaching for the black _Anti Social Social Club_ hooded sweater that Bryce had bought her – far more expensive than she could ever justify spending on a _sweater_ , and much too big for her but, as he had explained when he handed her the wrapped package with a hint of a teasing smile, four weeks after they had started dating – she could pretend that it was his, and stop conveniently forgetting to return the ones that he offered her when she inevitably felt the cold, walking along the docks together after dinner or sitting on the hood of his Rover at the water’s edge, watching the sparkling lights of the cars passing over the bridge. He had chuckled, eyes alight with amusement, when she had brought the borrowed sweaters – three in total and all laundered and neatly folded – to their next date, grasping her fingers in his and smiling as he told her to hold on to them. He liked the idea of her wearing them when he wasn’t around. _ _

__Chloe slipped into the soft fabric. The streetwear brand was neither his style or hers – at least, not the one she presented publicly, not any more – and sometimes she wondered how much he knew and found out and perceived that he kept hidden behind a lopsided smirk._ _

__It was both flattering and terrifying._ _

__She rolled the sleeves up from her hands as she turned back to Monty._ _

__“Have you got your keys?” she asked. “I have a different idea.”_ _

__And so, at 1.34am, Chloe stood nervously by while Monty wiggled loose the latch on the arts education wing doors with a screwdriver taken from the toolbox in the tray of his father’s truck, prised between the edges of the frame and manoeuvred until, with some skill and some luck, it fell free. They moved swiftly and guardedly through the shadowy halls, Monty tucking the screwdriver into his pocket along with the keys to his Jeep, which they had parked at the far edge of the football field, outside of the route that the security guards normally circuited once or twice an evening. Chloe led the way, her pale hair tucked into the hood of her sweater and her eyes darting over doorways looming empty and open, familiar posters on the walls promoting sports and extracurricular clubs and mental health helplines somehow sinister in the silence and the dark. Her keys jangled loudly as she unlocked the door to the photography lab. Monty, leaning his shoulder against the wall beneath a small plaque identifying the classroom as number _15_ , smiled mischievously. _ _

__“Still can’t believe they let you into AP Photography just because you’re good at taking selfies.”_ _

__Chloe scoffed in mock affront, cocking an eyebrow at him at the door latch clicked open._ _

__“It’s AP Studio Art 2D, you brute,” she answered, the playfulness in her tone almost masking the uncertainty that kicked around underneath it as she grasped the door handle. Before she could think better of it, she swung the door open and lifted her chin in challenge. “And that’s rich, coming from you. You realise they only let you wrestle and play football because they’ve seen you fight and they’d rather you do it with rules, right?”_ _

__Monty shrugged, grinning._ _

__“As long as I get to knock dickheads on their asses, what do I care?”_ _

__Chloe rolled her eyes, and led him into the empty, quiet classroom. The developing room was unlocked, as always, the red warning light over the door dormant and the small space completely lightless inside. With a familiar touch, she flicked on the light switch by the door to her right, and the room glowed crimson, casting her eyes violet and washing her fair skin in shades of blush and rose. As she crossed to the computer on the desk in the corner, Monty looked around the room, rubbing his hands together as he took in the expensive developing equipment._ _

__“Should’ve brought my Louisville,” he said, with a dark mix of wonder and disappointment. “Or the sledgehammer.”_ _

__Chloe cast a sharp look over her shoulder where she was bent over the keyboard._ _

__“We’re sending a message, remember?” she said, raising her eyebrows when he met her gaze. “If this is going to work, he needs to understand that he should keep his mouth shut about what he’s seen.”_ _

__Monty looked away, and for a moment, he was lost to her. His eyes went distant, and all that was left was his father, a heedless desire for destruction for the sake of itself tightening his hands into fists at his sides, an unconscious instinct learned in thousands of tiny increments over years and years. It was a look she had seen on him before, a look that, frighteningly, was often aimed at a person rather than an object, as if he were crafting an attack in his head, choreographing the lethality of each blow, imagining the feeling he had tried to articulate to her, once - that contradictorily gentle relief in the fraction of a second when the punch landed. Watching him, Chloe hesitated, the anxiety churning in her stomach threatening to boil over into fear, despite that she fought it, consciously pressed it down. He wouldn’t. _He wouldn’t.__ _

__And then, he turned an easy smile toward her, and it was him again._ _

__The six-year-old boy who had wandered over to where she was playing with her doll and tea set in the shade of the big old tree in the front yard, while her mother directed men delivering their furniture. Who sat on his skateboard opposite her with a hesitant smile, both of his front teeth missing, scabs on his knees and a black bruise on his jaw. Who had accepted a pink plastic tea cup with grubby hands and grinned when she giggled at the way he mimicked drinking with a flourish, his little finger held aloft. Who went wide eyed and pale beneath his freckles when a rumbling truck loaded with rattling toolboxes and equipment rounded the corner, dropping the tea cup in his haste to flee._ _

__The nine-year-old boy who came over when her mother had gone into labour with her sister and her step-dad had whisked her away to the hospital, leaving Chloe alone and too swept up to make sure that the sitter they called had arrived. Even as morning turned into afternoon and she had made herself a cheese sandwich and sat at the kitchen table to eat it by herself. Even as afternoon turned to dusk and she finally abandoned her post beside her doll on the couch, and clambered up the back fence to peer over, the evening breeze cool across the tears dampening her cheeks. The boy who had abandoned the laundry he had been unpegging from the clothesline, standing on an upturned bucket to reach, and climbed over the fence to her, a scrawny, raggedy little thing too lightly dressed for the weather, the singlet he wore revealing the black and purple imprints of his father’s belt across his shoulders. Who went with her, back into the house, and showed her how to make mac and cheese on the stove. Who stayed awake until after she had fallen asleep on the couch, watching **Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles** with an empty, cheese-crusted bowl in her lap. _ _

__The fourteen-year-old junior varsity safety who had run down a member of his own team, a running back who had spread a rumour – was it still a rumour if it was true? – that his sister saw her buying her pretty floral dresses at a goodwill thrift store. Who had ignored the shouts of his coaches when the ball sailed past him, forgotten, as he thundered after the other player. Who had taken advantage of the other boy’s running momentum to fist a hand in the back of his uniform shirt before dumping him, face first, into the pitch, digging a deep rivet with the safety guard across his face and kicking him in the side of the helmet for good measure, even as the assistant coach grabbed him by the collar of his shoulder pads and yanked him away._ _

__Before he had been Bryce’s, he had been hers, and sometimes she regretted the trade that they had both made._ _

__“The fuck’s with all this shit, anyway?” Monty asked, gesturing to the photographs pegged to the drying lines strung across the room._ _

__Tyler Down’s face over and over, sitting at an outdoor table at a restaurant, in a leafy backyard wearing a plaid shirt, posing with his camera slung around his neck, and grinning as he displayed an award certificate. On the far end, the picture that Clay Jensen had taken of him through the blinds of his bedroom window – naked and unaware – was hung. Although Chloe expected the boy to be amused, Monty gave the picture little more than a glance, his attention drawn back to the photograph with the merit award, his nose wrinkled in a frown that was equal parts anger, envy, and confusion – as if he didn’t recognise the genuine smile of pride the other boy wore, like it was some sort of foreign language or custom that he didn’t understand._ _

__“It’s for an identity project,” Chloe said, turning back to the computer. “We’re meant to juxtapose photos that show the person we think we are versus the person we think other people see.”_ _

__Monty snorted, reaching to pluck down the photos one by one._ _

__“Sounds gay.”_ _

__Chloe rolled her eyes, the corner of her mouth ticking up in reluctant amusement even as she sank her teeth into her lower lip. Carefully, she typed the username and password that Tyler had let her use one morning when she was running late making an assignment submission and, in her haste, had clumsily locked herself out of her student IT account by misspelling her password three times in a row. He had blushed when he had told her his passcode – HB4TD2017 – clearly hoping that she might not understand the reference. At the time, she had simply offered one of her bright, disarming smiles and hadn’t commented on his unrequited love for a beautiful dead girl. Now, guilt lodged low in her throat, thick and uncomfortable, as the screen loaded and she began to click through the directories._ _

__Chloe navigated through the folders by date. There were photographs of the town – abstracts of building details, the crumbling front corner of the Crestmont, graffiti on the side wall of the Blue Spot Liquor Store, a crow perched on the edge of the Baker’s Drug Store sign – and its people - an out of focus couple strolling in the park by the docks, the pines ancient and towering behind them, a lonely boat bobbing on the water tended by Sheriff Daughtry dressed in coveralls, its name _life’s a beach_ , painted in sloping letters along the side, a boy – Zach Dempsey, she realised – through the window of the ice cream store the next town over, balancing a spoon from his nose while his younger sister, sitting across the table from him with her ice cream cone dripping over her fingers, laughed gleefully. _ _

__Behind her, Monty worked quietly._ _

__There were folders of photographs of football training and baseball games and pep rallies, award presentations and cheerleading practice. Chloe clicked through a series of photographs that she couldn’t remember being taken or, she realised with a mild sense of unease, determine where they had been taken from, the edge of an unfamiliar window frame cutting across the corner of the shots as she scrolled through images of herself and the rest of the squad stretching and chatting. She recognised the familiar print of her own leggings in a photograph of her bent double to touch her toes, snapped three, four, five times, from behind, before she had stood up. Disgust and discomfort mixed with the hesitation and self-reproach already percolating in her stomach, making her feel ill as she clicked out of the folder, resisting the urge to drag it to the recycle bin as she opened the next._ _

__“How’s this for a message?”_ _

__Chloe turned and, unexpectedly, her breath caught in her throat._ _

__“Fuck,” she murmured, rows of morbid mask-like faces staring back at her, the eyes scratched to empty white hollows in each and every one. Ragged, sharp letters – entirely unlike his normal neat, looping handwriting – tore a message across the four photos pegged to the centre of the first drying line._ _

__**YOU AIN’T SEEN SHIT** _ _

__“Yeah,” she said, somehow bolstered by the satisfied grin that lit his face at her approval. “That should do it.”_ _

__He tossed the screwdriver in his hand, which he had used to scratch out the message, into the air, and caught it with a smile._ _

__“Well, if this shit doesn’t work, if he stills runs his mouth, we can always do it my way.”_ _

__He grasped the screwdriver by its shaft and mimicked smashing the equipment around him with the handle._ _

__Chloe shook her head, turning back to the computer._ _

__“Tyler’s the least dangerous of all of them,” she said, scrolling through reams and reams of thumbnails, dimly lit with splashes of colour – a pretty frock, a bold tie, the blue and purple dancefloor lights, that charcoal suit Jeff Atkins had looked so handsome in – until she spotted a blue dress that she recognised. “At least he sometimes knows when it’s better to be quiet.”_ _

__She felt Monty move to her side, looking down at the screen, which she double-clicked to enlarge a photograph of Justin Foley and Jessica Davis, messy drunk and hands all over one another, faces full of desire and drunken glee. Justin’s hands cradled her ribs, one sliding down over her abdomen as he tilted his lips to her ear. She reached for the back of his neck, a smile of pleasure brightening her face as her eyes fluttered closed._ _

__They had spoken on the drive to Liberty about the witnesses called by the law firms representing both Hannah Baker’s parents and the school district. The list that she had overheard Tom reeling off had been incomplete, some of the names misremembered and a couple she didn’t recognise, but she had been able to identify most of them. Tyler Down. Jessica Davis. Marcus Cole. Zach Dempsey. The Bakers. Kevin Porter._ _

__Bryce Walker._ _

__Some were more dangerous than others, but all of them had the ability to tear everything apart; to destroy what they had worked and suffered and strained through, to demolish every chance with complete disregard, without even a moment’s pause to understand that what they were doing in the name of a dead girl was sentencing others to a worse fate, one that they had to live with, without hope or escape._ _

__Chloe loved Bryce. And she knew that, although he would never vocalise it, Monty did, too._ _

__It wasn’t a romantic love – not even hers was, all of the time – but it was strong and deep and true, reinforced by all of the things that they didn’t have that he provided generously, without ever asking for anything in return. Not explicitly. Not even in a way that felt anything other than entirely voluntary. The fierce loyalty, the protective drive, the genuine affection – no matter how conflicted it was sometimes – felt natural. They came from her, independent of Bryce; the feelings were her own._ _

__Weren’t they?_ _

__And even if they weren’t – even in those fractions of moments when panic crept in and she felt entirely outside of herself, wondering how in the world she had gotten here – there was this –_ _

__Bryce could – _would_ – bounce back. He had all the protection and privilege and comfort that money could buy. He would survive, and with barely a scratch. Worst case scenario, he would go to another school – probably a better one than Liberty – and he would buy his admission into a prestigious college and he would get an important job, or at the very least a well-paying one, even if it was with his father’s company. After all of this was done, he would have a life. _ _

__This would be an ugly little scar that he laughed about, later._ _

__But for her – and for Monty – that little scar could be fatal, a knife slash to the throat._ _

__“I had an idea about that,” Monty said, looking down at the photograph of Jessica and Justin together, and Chloe cast him a sidelong look._ _

__“Good,” she said, forcing a steeliness into her voice that seemed necessary, but that she struggled to maintain, its foundations cracking and threatening to crumble and reveal all of the terror she hid behind it. “Me, too. And Jess is fucking stubborn. We’re probably going to need a few.”_ _

__Monty nodded, and she was struck, momentarily, by the level of power that he gave over, entirely without question, a degree of control that hadn’t been hers for a long time; that, since they had attended Liberty High School and had each been drawn into the other boy’s undeniable gravitational pull, he normally reserved solely for Bryce. He rolled the screwdriver between his palms as he looked at her._ _

__“OK, so – what’s the message this time?”_ _

__Chloe counted off each click of the mouse as she selected photos, and the printer to her left hummed to life._ _

__“Who”_ _

__“Would”_ _

__“Believe”_ _

__“A drunk”_ _

__“Slut?”_ _


	2. Dizzy (adj)

Dizzy, to Bryce, was:

\- The pain/euphoria that smashed across his senses when he swiped a rolled up one-hundred dollar bill along a line of finely cut white powder, laid out on his mother’s antique European dining table;  
\- Lying on the bottom of the swimming pool while his parents argued vehemently or steadfastly ignored each other, each determined to win the battle of wills over which pre-school, his lungs shrieking, his eyes stinging, waiting for one of them to notice him;  
\- Sitting alone on the swing in the playground at elementary school, twisting and twisting until the chains were wrapped tightly around one another, and then lifting his feet and letting go, spinning wildly, all of the children and their games and their friendships blurring around him;  
\- That pressure in his head, building into a blinding ache the harder he fought it, a press and a drive, a need, clawing at the inside of his skull the longer that he thrust and groaned and tightened his grip on her hips, thighs, anywhere but her throat; don’t do it - **please, don’t** ;  
\- The roar of a home crowd, the thunder of clapping hands and stamping feet reverberating across the field, that heady rush as they chanted his name, all of those smiling faces, all of those people, and even if his parents weren’t among them, they all wanted him;  
\- A slow build, like falling and lifting up and out of himself at the same time, a feeling of weightlessness counteracted by the heaviness so deep in his chest that he couldn’t reach it, all of the headlights on the bridge overhead blurring into a bitter sensation of being left behind. 

~

For Justin, dizzy felt like a falling leaf, dropping backwards, dreamlike, floating down and away from the pain and the memory of what he had done and what he had failed to do, slipping beneath the waves where it was quiet and warm, one hand barely managing to loosen the tourniquet before he faded out. 

It felt like those instinctive memories of screaming until his face was red and his throat was raw and his head spun with breathlessness as he wailed his inarticulate misery, lying trapped in dirty diaper and a grubby crib in a dark room, the inherited imprint of his mother’s addiction chewing at his insides.

It felt like the fuzz in his mind that followed closely behind the gnawing ache in his belly, that spiralled from distraction to weakness to desperation, impossible to articulate when he was small, difficult to hide when he wasn’t, a shameful unfulfilled need. 

It felt like slipping out of himself, a conscious untethering from his body and what was being done to it, and he could go anywhere at all, but most of the time, he just lingered on the other side of the door, his spirit crouched outside the room and waiting, tearfully, for it to be over. 

It felt like Seth’s hand, rough and tight beneath his jaw, constricting his airway, his breath hot and foul on his face, old memories rushing into his throat, a shadowy impression of his mother standing in the greying edges of his periphery, frozen by indecision, always. 

And it felt like Jess – her sweet, floral perfume with notes of sandalwood and lime, a soft bitter-chocolate curl brushing against his face as she shifted in her sleep, the firm grip of her fingers around his – she held hands with fierce passion, and the taste of her kiss – spearmint toothpaste and cinnamon gum and vanilla flavoured lip balm.

~

Monty and dizzy went like this – 

Six – his skull smashed through the dry wall and fractured on the formwork underneath, the penalty for breaking a plate.

Eight – lying on his side on a hospital bed, painkillers muddying his thoughts and dulling the ache of two broken ribs and a broken collarbone, murmured conversation between his parents and the emergency ward doctor behind him, squeezing his eyes closed at the sharp edge of his father’s voice; _the fuck do you mean, you want to see my hands?_

Eleven – forever after brought on by the press of a hand between his shoulder blades, creeping at the edge of his consciousness every time Bryce touched his arm or his back and he fought down the instinct to coil in on himself.

Twelve – an involuntary lockdown at that profile or silhouette, the low bass of a growl, the smell of hot breath and instinct, the flash of bared teeth.

Fourteen – waking from an unwanted dream of Tommy Shuster, heart pounding a staccato drumbeat, hating Tommy for being nice to him that one time when they bumped into each other in the dugout, hating himself more.

Sixteen – a spiderwebbed window stained red, the smell of coolant and jasmine blossoms, blue and cherry lights and the chirp of a siren, a ringing in his ears for hours and hours, and then the resounding crack of a pickaxe on concrete, and silence. 

~ 

Not long after she and Bryce had gone exclusive, Chloe’s mother had asked how he made her feel. She had thought about it for a moment, searching for the right word; one that wasn’t false, but also wasn’t wrong. Eventually, she decided. 

Dizzy.

Her mother had smiled sweetly, thinking she meant giddy – butterflies in the stomach, heart aflutter, in love.

She meant _dizzy. ___

__Dizzy, like he was lifting her higher than she could have ever imagined, and she was terrified of heights._ _

__Like he was smothering her, his hands over her face, pressed hard across her mouth and nose, her head throbbing and spinning as her lungs screamed for air._ _

__Like when she had gone with Sheri to hang out with Jeff and his girlfriend, and Jeff had told her she should only take half a molly – first timers could be unpredictable – and he was right, she spent hours lying on the couch with her head in Sheri’s lap, her fingertip tracing a line from her forehead to the tip of her nose, over and over, while tiny vibrations burst all over her skin._ _

__Like being seven again, and despite her pink knee pads and matching helmet, completely skinning her shins and hands when she stacked her first attempt at a kick-flip, her vision flip-flopping as Monty bent to help her up and then, as if it were the next natural step after setting her on her feet, picked up his skateboard and swung it, smashing the trucks into the face of a teenage boy who had laughed at her._ _

__Like the sensation that washed over her sometimes after Bryce made her a drink, his cheek dimpling with that devilish smile as he watched her take a sip._ _

__Like the first time she had nailed a perfect cartwheel in junior gymnastics class, and the recreation centre had been a spinning, beautiful kaleidoscope of colour around her._ _

__Like lying in an unfamiliar motel room, tiny in the uncomfortable queen-sized bed, the sheets strong with the scent of old cigarette smoke and bleach, staring up at the creaking ceiling fan, feeling as if she had been plucked from her own life and discarded, while her mother cried quietly behind the bathroom door._ _

__Like her first pep rally, the anxiety a bubbling rush in her stomach and her chest and her throat all at once, and that easy smile that Justin had offered as he took his place beside her, hiding his nerves much better than she did, and that spike of adrenalin when she had cartwheeled out onto the court that dissolved at the cheers of the crowd, like a tight, warm embrace._ _

__Like the way she had felt that one night when Bryce had asked her if she would try breath-play, and she had been frightened, both of saying yes and saying no, but hadn’t wanted to shame him; it had been both exhilarating and terrifying, until she had seen his expression afterwards, not quite concern but something like it, and she had realised she was crying. When he asked if she was OK, she had said yes, but that she didn’t want to do it again, and he had been disappointed, but agreed._ _

__Like being teamed with Courtney and Skye in a debate over gendered dress standards at Liberty in Communications class, and being awarded the win over that pompous ass Marcus, who looked at her like he saw straight through her dresses and pearls._ _

__Like squealing and clinging to Monty, her arms locked tight around his shoulders and her knees pressing hard into his hips when he revved the engine of his dirt bike and peeled away from the traffic lights, the front wheel lifting and bumping, the strap of the only helmet between them flicking loose beneath her chin._ _

__Like holding her breath and squeezing her eyes closed, twisted into a tight curl beneath her blankets, waiting, praying for the voice in the kitchen to stop, to just disappear, as if she could will him out of existence if she tried hard enough, and the guilty relief that the knifelike words weren’t meant for her, not this time, making her sick._ _

__Like taking a hit off the bong after Justin handed it to her – because he thumb-packed as if everyone else wouldn’t be slaughtered by the kind of cones he smoked – and she lay back on the couch thinking about how the inside of her mouth tasted pink, like bubble gum, and Justin sat next to her, just breathing quietly, watching Scott lose to his own ghost at _Mario Kart_._ _

__Like that half-remembered dream, everything murky, the hot press of a heavy body on top of hers, not quite dark but something close, breathless terror in waves, distant voices, a laugh, a flash._ _

__~_ _

__Monty needed both hands, so Chloe drove the Wrangler the second night._ _

__They waited until dark, Chloe asking to be excused from the dinner table to make a start on homework after spending the meal pushing the food around on her plate, and Monty offering to help his mother clean the dishes so that his father would take his fifth bottle of Dos Equis to the living room and set himself up in front of the television for the evening. Forty minutes later, after roll-starting the Jeep on the momentum of the steep driveway, using distance to muffle the sound of the engine turning over, he met her at the corner, nodding over his shoulder as he pulled the handbrake and unbuckled his seatbelt._ _

__“You two know each other?”_ _

__Chloe glanced through the window at what she could only reason must have been the cheapest brunette, wide-eyed, gaping-mouthed blow up doll ever manufactured as a sex aide, lying haphazardly across his gym bag, work boots, practice baseball bat, and the other miscellaneous junk tossed into the back of the Jeep, and rolled her eyes._ _

__“I can’t believe you guys keep that thing in the clubhouse.”_ _

__Monty shrugged, grinning as he climbed out and zipped his hooded sweater closed over his Liberty Tigers baseball tee._ _

__“Zachy’s gotta cash his v-card somehow, right?”_ _

__Resisting the urge to confirm that the doll was unused – it didn’t seem worth the risk of finding out it wasn’t - Chloe tossed her Liberty duffel bag into the back beside the sex doll, and hoisted herself up into the driver’s seat. Monty swung into the passenger seat beside her and leaned down to retrieve the coil of rope at his feet as she put the Jeep back into gear. She had learned to drive in this car – had named it Jillian (the Jeep) despite his protests – and being behind the wheel, even for the first time in several months, felt as natural as gliding down the hill toward their neighbourhood on her skateboard once had, the wind in her face as she weaved patterns across the blacktop while Monty grinded the edge of a low brick fence downhill from her; two little heathens, scrawny and uncontrolled, with scabbed elbows and devilish grins._ _

__The streets were quiet and she was grateful for the cool breeze around the edges of the canopy, the gentle shifting air over her skin distracting her from the indecision churning in her stomach. She knew that they had to do this – it wasn’t a matter of choice – what frightened her more was that part of her **wanted** to do it. There was a twisted kind of satisfaction in protecting someone she cared about. _ _

__Even if it was at the cost of someone else – because wasn’t that what all of those other kids were doing? Testifying to protect the memory of a dead girl, the cost laid at the feet of people still living? Even if their first attempt wasn’t exactly successful – Tyler had been more determined than they had given him credit for, but that was OK – what he knew was inconsequential, the damage contained now that his testimony was given, and anyway, there were ways to make him understand the mistake he had made. **Mistakes** , plural, because testifying was one thing, but even a day later, her skin prickled at the thought of the photographs she had found in his directory, taken without her knowledge or permission, as if he somehow thought he had a right to her, like she was something that could just be taken by whoever felt entitled to her. _ _

__And in some ways, it was easy. It almost felt like a nice thing to do, or at least close enough to one that she could tell herself it wasn’t cruel – making Jess a flyer wasn’t just about adding another subtle layer of pressure on what was clearly already a heavy load, it was an opportunity, a vote of confidence. It was a weak lie – one she told only to herself and only for her own benefit – and it didn’t go very far to assuage her guilt, but at the same time, a strong defensive drive waged battle with her unease. This was a girl who cheated on her boyfriend and, to mask her own regret and garner forgiveness for her own disloyalty, tried to twist it around on Bryce. She had lied and then had the audacity to slip away and hide from all of the fall out of that, in a way that Bryce hadn’t, in a way that Chloe couldn’t, the gossip swelling around them only a few weeks after they had started dating, until it became like a challenge, a dare, a test of her confidence and loyalty, to push on._ _

__It didn’t matter if a tiny whisper inside of her suspected that the situation wasn’t what people said – or was exactly what they said, depending on who was saying it._ _

__And anyway, staying - it hadn’t been all about her, or all about Bryce._ _

__Chloe glanced at Monty’s hands working, twisting and winding the rope around itself with more care than he bothered to take with most things, making sure that each coil was tight, running out any snags or kinks between his hands before he started the next pass._ _

__A flash of memory stuttered to life, like a grainy projection, superimposed over the moment. Sitting in the back of her stepdad’s truck, the cab dark and the smell of smoke thick from the cigar that he passed to Monty’s father. Glancing across at Monty, who stared out the window at the pitch-black road as if none of them were there, as if no one was. There had been something wrong with him for months by then – something missing or gone, something broken – and part of her knew what it was, but a larger part of her didn’t want to know, couldn’t bear to acknowledge it. There was a shadow of bruising, black edged with purple, beneath his jaw, almost indistinguishable in the dark, and even though she knew it wasn’t handmade – the shape was too distinct to have been anything but what it was - it was too hard to ask the question she wanted to._ _

__“Did your dad do that?” she had whispered, her eyes on the bruise so that neither of the men sitting in front of them noticed her pointing it out._ _

__Monty hadn’t looked at her – hadn’t really looked at her for months – and shook his head._ _

__Chloe bit her lip and glanced down at the loop of rope in his lap. Tried not to let her gaze stray any further, to the patchwork scar below the cuff of his cropped sweatpants._ _

__“I don’t know whether I should be scared how good you are at that.”_ _

__She aimed for a smile, figuring she must have made a convincing go of it when Monty glanced sidelong at her and shrugged casually._ _

__“Watched a YouTube tutorial.”_ _

__As they left their neighbourhood and headed up the hill, the homes around them grew, in size and presentation – tidy bungalows with fresh paint and well-kept gardens, second stories cropping up on every other block, pots of flowers on porches, trimmed hedges and shady trees, neat fences and gates, because people in this area had something worth protecting behind them. Chloe didn’t bother flicking the blinker on to make a left – there were no other cars on the road, and even if there were, it felt counterproductive to flag their heading. Biting the inside of her lip, she looked in the rear-view mirror at the sex doll, and pressed down the doubt that crept in the shadow of her determination._ _

__Pulling forward a smile, she nudged Monty’s elbow with her own._ _

__“Hey, do you want to go to the skate park, after this? We could grab some cokes and fries, just hang out, like when we were little?”_ _

__Monty, tightening the final coil of the rope, cocked an amused eyebrow at her._ _

__“Like you’ve touched a french fry since you were thirteen.”_ _

__The rebuttal was about more than french fries, she knew. It was about more than her self-consciousness and the image she felt that she needed to protect and the way that, even when he looked at her with open desire, Bryce somehow made her feel like exactly enough and entirely insufficient, all at once. It was about their first day at Liberty – a year after the cracks that had begun to form between them, appearing months before that night in the truck – and that tiny little choice she had made that had turned the cracks into fault-lines, shifting and crumbling with every choice they had made since then, despite that they slapped bandages over them and hoped desperately that they would hold._ _

__Chloe shrugged off the sarcasm, clinging to the smile. She didn’t want him to see in her expression that the idea that scared her, more than actually doing this, was doing it and then going home, climbing into bed, and acting as if everything was fine._ _

__She didn’t want him to see what they both knew – that this wasn’t just about Bryce. That it was a doomed attempt to rescue something else, something that had once been far more precious to both of them, so precious that, even though she knew it was irrecoverable, she couldn’t bear not to try._ _

__Chloe pulled the Jeep to a stop against the curb, a few blocks down from the double-story sage green bungalow on the right, its porch light glowing a golden welcome. Monty, looking at the house, sighed, then turned his gaze to meet hers._ _

__“There’s some shit I gotta do, after this,” he said. “You wanna drop me off at school while you pick up the food?”_ _

__He didn’t explain any further, and she didn’t ask him to. She simply nodded, warm memories flickering like candlelight in her chest, of lying at the edge of the halfpipe, knees bent and feet dangling over into the drop below, giggling and staring up at the pinprick stars sprinkled above them, the sky limitless, like it could absorb her and her tiny life and it would be like she had never existed. At the time, it had been a comforting thought, and exactly what she wanted to feel in that moment._ _

__She blinked back the thought when he unbuckled his seatbelt and turned to reach for the sex doll._ _

__“Hang on,” Chloe reached her arm beneath his, tugging her Liberty duffel closer to unzip it. She fished around inside and raised her eyebrows as she brandished a role of silver tape and a red marker pen. “Let me pretty her up, first.”_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this section follows more or less directly from the first. From here on out, each chapter will be a self-contained scene led by one of the four characters. Our man, Mr Foley, is up first, and I'll be expanding on his comments in s2 about blowing through his money after arriving in Oakland staying in motels :)
> 
> Thank you, as always, to the lovely, awesome, irreplaceable beekitties, without whom this fic and the ones before it wouldn't exist. 
> 
> Thanks for reading and commenting! Hope everyone has a happy Christmas x


	3. the Palms

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A small glimpse at Justin's early days in Oakland.

_”rundown, outdated, only good for a trap house”_

_”do not stay here… seems like there may be a working crowd that comes through at night. Our bed was not made. Cockroach ran across the floor. No internet. Used toothbrush in the sink. Dirty smell… so yeah”_

_”only gave one star because you can’t give none”_

_1/5 stars_

**the Palms motel, Oakland**

The dirty blinds hung lopsidedly in the window, alternately leaning on and pushing away from one another, splashing the room with uneven splices of light from the street-lamps outside. The sound of traffic passing by the motel complex was a low and constant hum, barely registering on his consciousness. Occasionally, a faraway police siren sounded, but he paid the sound no mind. Inside the room was airless and shadowy, the light from outside providing the only illumination. For the most part, the motel was empty, the parking lot sparsely populated and the night clerk snoozing in the light of a portable black and white television behind the bullet-proof glass at the reception booth. 

He heard the hiss of hydraulic brakes somewhere nearby, and thought of a truck stop motel that he hadn’t seen in years. Somehow, those times seemed better, now.

At least then he hadn’t been alone.

Justin, lying on the lumpy, scratchy mattress in underwear and a threadbare sweater, the majority of his scant wardrobe drip-drying from the pull-across laundry line strung over the tub in the cramped, grimy bathroom after a half-hearted clean in the sink with the tiny disc of complimentary soap, already well-used by the time he had arrived at the motel, rolled his head toward the digital alarm clock on the wonky bedside table. 

“Fuck.”

Eons had passed since he had last checked the time, and yet the display showed the difference as eight meagre minutes. 

Eleven. Dallas said he would be back by eleven. 

_By_ eleven, and it was a quarter to, so he could be back already, right?

He wouldn’t mind Justin knocking on his door, just to check? Peering through the gap in the blinds, tapping on the window, _c’mon, man, you fucking said…_

Justin closed his eyes and pressed his fists against his eyelids, turning everything black. The tamales he had bought from the food truck that pulled up at noon every day outside of the hardware store down the street churned in his gut. They were spicier than he would have normally been able to stomach – the two women who ran the truck accustomed to feeding tradesmen and day-workers who seemingly had stronger digestive systems than Justin, despite that he had grown up on a diet heavy in questionable service station hotdogs and fast food prepared by uncaring and unclean adolescents – but they were sold out of chicken tacos by the time he had dragged himself over there. 

He could have gone to any of the string of fast food outlets that lined both sides of the street three blocks down – definitely it would have been cheaper, and the walk would have passed the time – but every day, he found himself back at the truck. The women behind the counter scarcely spoke English – he ordered by gesturing and nodding most of the time – and he was pretty sure that when he had woken up vomiting and spent four hours on the toilet three nights ago, it had been from the pork carnitas he had ventured to try, but he had still gone back the next day.

With no one and no place to be, their traditional, home style cooking was like a keyhole through which he could glimpse what he had left behind, in snippets so small that they only hurt a little, like checking the temperature of water with his fingertip and finding it unbearably, painfully hot. 

Wandering along the boardwalk after drinking at the pier until they came upon a small taco truck strung with fairy lights. The girl behind the counter had greeted them brightly in Spanish, and Bryce had nudged Zach’s elbow, grinning as he nodded at Monty. _Why don’t we let the illegal order for us, huh, Dempsey?_ Kat had tugged her hand from Justin’s with an immediacy and purpose that sent him tense with wary apprehension as she grabbed Monty’s shoulder, stopping him even as he stepped obediently forward, and then cocked her eyebrow at Bryce. _Why don’t you get the fuck over yourself, Walker?_ she suggested, her tone honey-sweet, before turning to order for the group in faultless Spanish. When Bryce had peeled a one-hundred-dollar bill from his wallet and waved it at her, admitting defeat with a lopsided smirk, Kat had gone for the kill shot, shrugging and tugging a few folded bills from the back pocket of her jeans. Wrinkling her nose at him, she smiled, _my treat_.

Curled up on the couch in a small apartment that wasn’t theirs, fumbling the television remote in too-small hands as he attempted to increase the volume of the _Muppets Christmas Carol_ special, the voices from the kitchen growing harsh and pitchy. There was a decorated tree in the corner, hung with coloured baubles and sparkling tinsel and strings of glittering lights, but that wasn’t theirs, either. _You said one night, Amber!_ a woman’s voice rang out from the kitchen. _I’m your sponsor, not a fucking charity_. His mother had appeared beside him, red patches of anger bright on her cheeks, a bowl stacked with corn chips and slathered in melted American cheese slices thrust in his direction. Justin took the offering gratefully, eyes round at the size of it, and shovelled his mother’s nachos – his favourite – into his mouth so quickly that the cheese burned his tongue. While he ate, the two women stomped around the apartment, alternately yelling, shoving past each other, and stuffing his and his mother’s belongings into bags. They left before the _Muppets_ special finished. His mother met her new dealer on the bus that afternoon. She had been sober for twenty-two days. 

Sitting on a rocky out-cropping overlooking the river that they had set up camp on the bank of, the Rover and the Wrangler and the tents – finally put up after hours of arguing and riling and laughter at Bryce’s expense, because he somehow had no idea how to hammer in a tent peg. Justin watched Alex watching Scott, the other boy leaning across the driver’s seat of the Wrangler to turn up the music before swivelling and, without warning, barrelling at Monty, who stood at the edge of the out-cropping beside them. Monty yelped in surprise, and the two boys grunted and laughed as they scuffled, bronze and lean in bare feet and boardshorts from their baseball pre-season routine – weight training first thing in the morning with Luke and Zach, before they climbed into Monty’s Jeep and drove down to the beach to run a few miles along the shoreline and then swim back against the tide. As they tumbled over the edge and fell into the water below, an ungainly tangle of limbs, Alex folded his arm across his stomach, shifting uncomfortably to Justin’s right. Luke lumbered up on Alex’s other side, munching on something and offering the two boys the Tupperware container in his hand when they both cast him a curious look. _what the hell even are they?_ Alex asked, as Justin reached across him to grab a handful of the rolled, fried snacks. _taquitos_ Luke shrugged, smiling lopsidedly. _my mom made them to share_.

Sliding onto the bench at a cafeteria table beside Jeff, Sheri tucking in beside him, Justin’s face lit with a bright grin as he dumped his duffel on the floor and announced, confidently and enthusiastically, to Bryce, Zach and Monty – sitting opposite them, _there’s nothing better on the face of this fucking earth than Taco Tuesday_. Bryce had smirked, amused, while Sheri giggled. Jeff, all caramel tan and bright white smile from summer break, had cast a sidelong look at the messy, soggy, mass-produced tortillas, canned refried beans and processed cheese slopped onto his tray, and smiled across the table at Monty, cocking his head at Justin. _principiante_. Monty, glancing at the mess over his half-eaten egg salad sandwich, shook his head and muttered his agreement. _orale_. Justin didn’t think he had ever heard Monty speak Spanish before. It added curves to his accent that were otherwise consistently harsh lines. _the fuck does that mean?_ Justin asked, already tearing open the packaging of a disposable fork, and Jeff had patted him on the back reassuringly, his smile kind and genuine. _it means you need to come to my house for dinner sometime, bro. My mom will make you some real food_. Less than a year later, and before Justin took him up on that offer, Jeff was dead. 

Groaning, Justin pressed his knuckles into his eye sockets until his whole head ached. 

It was never dark for long. 

Jess’s face, that mask of horror and terror and pain and, somewhere underneath that – relief, which had been the hardest for him to take – in the moment that he had finally screamed the truth at her by the pool that night. 

He was a shitty boyfriend.

Bryce’s face, almost unreadable, something not very different to mild frustration, and nothing more. None of the rage or panic that Justin had expected. Not even the betrayal he had been certain the other boy would feel, and that cut Justin almost more deeply than Jess’s choked down, heart wrenching sobs, all of the hurt that she had tried to drown in alcohol and denial and playing with fire, bubbling up and out of her unhindered. And all he could think was that Bryce had expected this – on some level, he had known this was coming, so that the look that he gave Justin wasn’t one of shock or hurt, but one of realisation – he had suspected Justin to be capable of treachery, and Justin had proven him right. 

He was a shitty friend.

Monty’s face, standing behind Bryce, and in the breathless, silent seconds afterwards, Justin’s words echoing around them in the still night air, all that control fell away, and the shock and betrayal that Justin had expected from Bryce was reflected in the other boy.

He was a shitty person.

Spots of colour swam across his vision as Justin opened his eyes and stared up at the slowing rotating ceiling fan. Chewing the corner of his thumbnail, he thought about ducking around to the other side of the complex, where a couple of working girls took clients in a room that faced away from the street, one walking the footpath outside and keeping watch while the other worked, then vice versa. They always had hash that they were willing to share for a few bucks as a side hustle, as long as he timed it right and managed to slip in between visits from the local gang members who came to check up on them and take their money every couple of hours. 

He was running seriously low on funds, but he could scrape up a couple of coins for a little nugget, just enough to take the edge off until Dallas got back. Justin glanced at the dirty bong he had jury-rigged out of an empty soda bottle, the water grimy and dark, the pungent smell of it mixing with the harsh scent of starch and years of cigarette smoke on the old, grubby bedsheets and whatever heavy-duty cleaner they had used in a failed attempt to lift the stains from the carpet before he had rented the room.

He looked at the clock again. 

“ _Fuck_.”

It had been twelve days. Twelve days since he had offered to kill Bryce with his own two hands and, in response, Jessica had told him that she never wanted to see him again. Since Bryce had handed him that bottle of vodka outside of the Blue Spot – it had lasted him the bus ride to Oakland and halfway into the first night, and he had woken up with a jackhammer headache and a throat full of sandpaper afterwards. Since Bryce had asked, in a way that seemed hopeful but Justin read as testing – Bryce never had a need to hope for anything, he could trust that whatever he wanted would just happen – whether he would see him around.

“No. I don’t think you will.”

And that had been that. 

After eight years, the only brother he had ever known, the only friend he had ever really had, the only person who had cared for him before he fucked everything up with Jess – the one who had arranged for him to have new school supplies and clothes at the start of each year, who paid his cafeteria bills each month and got him antibiotics when he had an ear infection and replaced his basketball shoes when he outgrew the last pair – the only person who had ever truly been family to him, was gone.

Justin was used to feeling alone and forgotten. Those sentiments had been common companions before Bryce had found him. And yet, somehow, after all those years in the comfort and security of the other boy’s grace, he hadn’t expected the gaping hole that Bryce’s absence would leave in his life; the massive, sharp-edged void inside of him, the space it encompassed unfathomable and impenetrably dark. The chasm was so complex and uncharted that he bumped up against its rough boundaries without meaning to when someone laughed in a room downstairs and it sounded like Bryce. He knocked his elbows and head against unseen edges when he saw a Range Rover in the hardware store parking lot and couldn’t help the involuntary spike of hope and dread that criss-crossed through him. He stumbled and grazed his hands on the downward tilt of the void, tipping him toward impenetrable blackness when he knocked on Dallas’s door for the third time in one day and Dallas cocked an unsurprised eyebrow at him, like he had expected nothing more of Justin.

Like Bryce had.

And for all of that space that Bryce had taken up and then vacated in his life, all of the emptiness that his absence left, it was nothing compared to the searing ache of losing Jess. 

“Fuck it.”

Justin rolled from the mattress before he could think better of it, leaving the stained sheets in a twisted heap – they always ended up that way by the time he woke from restless sleep anyway, bundled into knots from a night spent fighting memories intertwined with fear, choked for breath until his eyes snapped open and the dim, dirty room greeted him. Or worse – sometimes, he dreamed of Jess, her unbridled laugh and the way her face lit with mirth when it rang out, the way her waist seemed perfectly shaped to his hands, like they didn’t belong anywhere else, the scent of her and the way that it seemed to linger, even when he opened his eyes, even as the harsh odours of the room attempted to choke it. 

The only time he ever truly slept – deep, black, uninterrupted, dreamless sleep – was when he got faded.

And it had been at least ten hours since he ran out of oxy.

Stepping over the duffel dumped open on the floor at the foot of the bed, Justin grabbed his old jeans. They had already been torn at both knees before he had left Evergreen County and now were stained as well. Dirt around the cuffs from walking backwards along the edge of the highway in the general direction of the bus station, thumb-out and squinting against the oncoming headlights of the cars that passed him by. Blood on the left leg from that night a week ago when he hadn’t quite timed it right and had been caught buying hash from one of the girls behind the complex, and he had torn a graze across his knee tumbling down the concrete stairs in his haste to flee the two men who had arrived and spotted him. Justin tugged them on and stepped into his dirty sneakers, palmed his room key and shoved it in his pocket. He snatched a couple of crumpled bills from where he had stuffed them between the pages of the tattered old bible in the bedside cabinet, steadfastly ignoring his mobile phone, even as it clattered against the back of the drawer as he shoved the bible back inside and slammed it closed. 

He hadn’t really estimated how long Seth’s money would last, when he had taken it, but it was definitely longer than this. 

Justin scooped up his skateboard – a lucky find left behind by some kid in the lost and found box that the night clerk had let him have in exchange for a cheeky smile and a few compliments - and stepped outside.

The night air was cold, and he thought about going back for his varsity jacket, but he had been wearing it the night he almost got caught buying hash, and the bright sky blue was easily spotted from a distance. By now, he was too unsteady on his feet to flee with any hope of success. Taking a few quick steps, he let the skateboard slip from his hand and it clattered onto its wheels in an unsteady roll a moment before he stepped onto it. He remembered skating being easier than this – he had never been great at it, not like the older kids who hung out at the skate park near the apartment building where he and his mother had lived for a few months when he had been around seven or so, but he had always had a level of natural physical ability, a balance that kept him on his feet, an almost feline grace that he had no right to and which had made him a star on the Liberty Tigers basketball team. Now, it took every ounce of his concentration to stay upright, to not tip off of the board and tumble to the ground and just stay there, because what was even the fucking point?

Dallas’s room was at the far end of the front side of the complex, where cars could pull up in the parking lot and people could come and go without bothering anyone, because the old woman who was his only neighbour was hard of hearing and turned the volume up on the game shows she watched all evening so loud that Justin could hear the tinny, distorted chanting of some gleefully enthusiastic crowd from more than four doors down. He came to a clumsy stop against the doorframe of Dallas’s room. Although the nose of the skateboard had clattered loudly enough against the wooden frame to announce his presence, he added three quick knocks which, when not immediately answered, he followed with an urgent tapping on the window, attempting to peer into the dark room through the narrow gap underneath the blinds. 

Dallas used to be a vet. Justin had thought, when he met him outside of the clerk’s booth on his second night at the motel, and Dallas had been so obviously high that Justin had been able to spot it from the other side of the parking lot, even before he got close enough to see the flooded irises and hear the way he slurred entire sentences into a single, unintelligible syllable, that he meant a veteran. But he meant a vet – as in, an animal doctor. A veterinarian. Until he lost his licence for selling pain killers and sedatives meant for dogs and cats and horses to bikers on the side, buying them wholesale and adding a little cream for himself to the sale price, before it got cut up and marked up to street prices. He was found out when a girl at a rave overdosed on a combination of ketamine and a trail mix of unidentified pills. 

And so, Dallas had done a few years in a federal prison, and came out with connections to drug pipelines he hadn’t had before, and after a few small busts and a falling out with the motorcycle club, had come to be holed up here, selling small quantities of pills and whatever other narcotics he happened across – because, despite it all, Dallas was a happy go lucky guy - and nodding out in front of the television in a dirty little motel room.

Unable to spot any movement in the dark room and any possible sound from inside entirely drowned out by the game show music from the room next door, Justin moved back to the door. At first, he knocked politely – three knocks, wait, another two knocks – but the shaking in his hands and the quaking in his gut and the jackhammer pace of his pulse behind his ribs got the better of him, and he found himself knocking, unrelenting, and with increasing vigour, for so long that he blistered his knuckle. 

“Fucking Dallas,” Justin cursed, slamming his palm against the doorframe and turning away. 

Dallas was a standard, garden variety dealer – no one’s time was worth more than his was, anyone who wasn’t willing to wait didn’t really want his wares, and there were always more customers where they came from. Being back by eleven meant that he would be back whenever the fuck he felt like it, and if Justin wasn’t happy with that, then he was welcome to go and try his luck buying from someone else. 

Huffing, Justin kicked his skateboard against the door, and then plopped down to sit on it, and wait. 

Bouncing his heels agitatedly, Justin scrubbed a hand over his face and tried to pull together some resolve. He should have some fucking self-respect, go back to his room and just wait. He should be saving his money, anyway – he was already two nights behind on paying for the room, he didn’t have enough for a third, let alone what he owed, and his dimpled grin and puppy dog eyes were probably not going to persuade the manager to give him any more leeway, no matter how much effort he put into prostrating himself, making himself look as pitiful as possible. 

Flirting – which was always his first choice in his catalogue of survival skills, the most natural and the least painful to draw upon - was simple enough, but when that began to fail, which it had after the first unpaid night, he dug deeper, for talents he had learned from his mother without even realising, until Bryce had pointed it out to him one day with a mixture of fascination and amusement, after they had been cautioned by a sheriff’s deputy for loitering behind the Crestmont and Bryce had talked them out of a mandatory ride home. Justin had reacted instinctually to the authority of the deputy, making himself seem as small and pathetic as possible, to garner sympathy or, worst case scenario, at least apathy, in the face of a threat. Bryce, who had scarcely felt an urge toward shame or even contrition in his entire life, found the pitiful display endlessly interesting. 

Pitiful or not, Justin was broke, and about to be officially, literally, terrifyingly homeless. 

And he hated himself for it, but all he wanted was to be able to flop onto the couch in the pool house, where it smelled like weed and beer and chlorine and Bryce’s aftershave, and sleep. 

Justin watched an old, wheezing station-wagon pull into the parking lot a few feet away. A tired looking young woman dressed in a crumpled cleaning uniform climbed out from behind the wheel before helping a little boy from the booster seat in the back. The boy, dark haired and barely awake at this hour, stumbled after her as she headed for the utility room halfway along the building. Justin watched the woman slip a key from her pocket and unlock the door. The boy, clinging to a well-loved plush dinosaur toy, allowed himself to be ushered into the room. After a few minutes, the woman came back out, pushing a cart of cleaning supplies, and closed the door behind her, pausing to cast a lingering glance into the storeroom before pressing the latch into place. Justin watched her walk the cart along the row of rooms and around the corner, heading for the back of the building. 

Tipping his head back against the door, he thought of the little boy, probably curled up on a pile of starched bedsheets in the dark utility room, clinging to the stuffed dinosaur and falling asleep to the sound of gameshow music and shouting from one of the rooms upstairs and the hydraulic brakes of a truck slowing down to pull into the service station on the corner.

Justin closed his eyes. 

~

He had spent his sixth birthday at a Motel 6 across the road from a truck stop. 

Justin hadn’t realised it was his birthday until he had been sitting with his mother in a booth at the truck stop diner that night, and the middle-aged waitress had plopped a plate stacked with pancakes and piled with whipped cream on the table between them, two brilliantly bright, fizzing sparklers stuck haphazardly into the top of the stack. His mother, sitting opposite him in a small dress too light for the weather under an old, beat up jacket, her dark, tangled hair scraped into a tail and her face heavy with greasy, days-old makeup, smiled at him, exhausted.

“Happy birthday, baby.”

Justin quickly propped his Starscream action figure against the napkin holder and grabbed his knife and fork, shovelling a heaping mouthful of whipped cream into his mouth before the sparklers had even burned all the way down. His mother had eaten a few small mouthfuls, but otherwise had watched him demolish the stack until it was just a messy smear of melted cream and soggy batter. When they left, she took his hand, tugging him quickly past the family who had come in from a heavily packed camper van parked outside, heading to or returning from a road-trip holiday somewhere, the parents casting glances at one another as Justin smiled toothily at them, Starscream clutched in one hand and his face sticky with whipped cream. 

Grinning happily, hyped up on sugar, Justin trotted alongside his mother as they weaved between the cars and campers in the lot outside of the truck stop, then cut across the fuelling station forecourt, where huge tractor trailers were parked in neat rows at the bowsers. As was habit by now, Justin eyed the trucks suspiciously as they passed, peering around a thin blonde woman in a short skirt and smoking a cigarette, who was talking to a truck driver and blocking the badge mounted on the front grill of the massive blue Mack. Gripping Starscream tightly, Justin lagged behind, his mother’s hand jerking on his as he tried in vain to spot an Autobots logo past the skinny, shivering woman, a dead giveaway – and the perfect birthday present, he thought – that Optimus Prime was hiding in plain sight. 

“Hey, Amber. Where you going, baby?”

Justin tried to turn to see the man who called after them, but his mother tugged him along so insistently, her hand wrapped tight around his wrist, that he almost tripped over his own feet.

“Hey, slut. I’m talking to you!” the man shouted, his voice suddenly rough-edged and angry, and Justin glimpsed him over his shoulder this time, a portly, middle aged man in dirty jeans and a stained t-shirt, an old, weathered baseball cap pulled down over shaggy, greying curls. “My money no good for you all of a sudden?”

Justin stumbled, bumping into his mother’s leg as she rounded on the man.

“It’s my kid’s fucking birthday, you fucking asshole!” she shrieked at him, her voice cracking and her volume drawing the attention of the drivers and women and truck stop workers in the lot. As Justin ducked behind her hip, peering past her at the red-faced man, she raised an aggressive one fingered salute. “Suck your own tiny cock!”

Back at their motel room, Justin had lay awake, Starscream keeping watch from the bedside table while he flicked through late night television shopping channels and waited for his mother to be done in the bathroom. Occasionally, he heard her muttering or running the water in the sink, and once he thought he heard a sob, but the door remained closed. By the time she stepped out, hair loose and awry, her eyes dark and distant, he had fallen asleep on top of the blankets of the small double bed they had been sharing since they had arrived at the motel a few weeks earlier, shoes still on and whipped cream residue gluing the pillowcase to his face. She slid his shoes off gently, placing them on the floor at the foot of the bed, and curled her thin, frail body around his, her trembling fingers threading through his hair until she fell asleep. 

The next morning, his mother had to work, so Justin had to play outside, ushered out the door by his mother’s insistent hands even as he complained that he was hungry. From the edge of the parking lot, where he flew Starscream in fighter jet configuration through dramatic loops and spins, Justin watched a tall, heavy-set man dressed in jeans and a thick winter jacket trot across the road from the truck stop. Glancing around the small motel complex, the man walked to the door of their room and knocked. After a moment, the door cracked open and, after he passed something over the threshold that Justin couldn’t see, swung far enough for him to step inside. 

Although he knew he wasn’t supposed to – his mother had grabbed him by the elbow so hard that it hurt and dragged him back to the other side of the parking lot the last time that she had been working and had caught him outside of the room, walking Starscream goose-step style along the windowsill – Justin wandered along the edge of the parking lot toward the room, absentmindedly transforming the toy in his hands, each movement learned by heart and executed without attention. 

As he passed the small, cramped reception office, the old lady behind the counter raised her eyebrows at him over the lipstick red frames of her glasses, and called out through the propped open door.

“Shouldn’t you be in school, sweetheart?”

Shyly, Justin shrugged, and quickened his step, almost colliding with the bumper of an SUV that pulled into the space outside of the office, its engine overheating and ticking agitatedly. Hesitating, Justin bit his lip and backed into the alcove of a doorway to watch the small, slim blonde woman who climbed from the driver’s seat. She looked frazzled, fumbling the purse tucked beneath her elbow as she attempted to smooth the creases from her blouse with one hand and hold her cell phone to her ear with the other.

“I realise, Gerald – but I’m out of options here and I’m relying on you to represent my interests!” Exhausted vexation drew a tight line through her tone. “We literally have a suitcase of clothes, and that’s it. I need this settled. Gavin has the house and everything else he wants. He’s frozen our joint accounts. We don’t even have anywhere to live.” She paused, listening, and her face went taut even as her lips quivered, pressed into a harsh line. “No, I really don’t think you **do** understand…”

Justin watched the woman look from the sign at the road side, grimy and weathered, the light behind ‘no’ dimmed while ‘vacancies’ gleamed hopefully red, and then turn her head toward the squat, run down motel complex, tension lining her eyes and mouth.

“I don’t care about the house, or the boat, or the timeshare, OK?” she said into the phone, closing her eyes as if she wished she could lie down and go to sleep, the way his mother looked sometimes when she had spent all day working and he was full of energy and questions and tactile affection after keeping himself occupied for hours. “I just need some furniture and enough money to find us somewhere to live. Whatever you think is reasonable, Gerald. I just want to settle. I need this to be done.”

“Mom, why do we have to stay here?”

Justin peered from his hiding place at the blonde girl who slipped from the back seat of the SUV, appearing around the edge of the car door. She was no taller than Justin, her frame small and delicate, her long hair worn in a neat braid over one shoulder. He didn’t see a lot of kids around the motel or truck stop, and cautious glee fizzed in his stomach at the idea of having someone to play with. 

The woman closed her eyes and took a long, slow breath through her nose.

“Gerald, please call me back when you have an update, OK?” the woman said into the phone. She didn’t wait for a response before thumbing the screen and dropping her hand to her side as she turned to face the girl. 

“Honey, we’ve gone over this,” she said, patience a delicate thread poised to snap, barely hidden beneath her sweet, gentle tone. “Daddy decided that he loves Krysta from his office. So, he’s going to have a new baby and live in our house, and we need to find somewhere else to live.”

Justin watched the little girl frown, looking up at the motel complex. In one hand, she held a doll dressed in a pale yellow pinafore. Hopeful, he clutched Starscream against his chest. 

“But I don’t want to live somewhere else,” the girl said, miserable and confused. She looked up at her mother, blue eyes questioning. “Why can’t we all just live together?”

The blonde woman looked pale, like his mother did sometimes when she woke up, sweating and shaking, and tumbled into the bathroom to vomit. Justin drew back further into the alcove as she turned, pressing her hair back from her face and stepping to the open car door, where she brushed a hand over the girl’s hair, her words curt but full of raw aching misery. 

“Because Daddy doesn’t love Mummy anymore.”

The girl frowned, considering for a moment. 

“But he still loves me, right?”

The woman sighed, and cradled the girl’s cheek in her hand. 

“Oh, Chloe,” she said, her voice gentle and sad. “I’m sorry, honey. But no, I don’t think he does.”

~

“Hey, dude. You looking for me?”

Justin blinked his eyes open, realising with a start that he had been dozing. Squinting, he followed the boots in front of him up a pair of skinny legs clad in dirty jeans, to a stained t-shirt and, above that, Dallas wearing a spaced-out, lopsided grin. 

Dallas, with his long hair and goatee, always reminded Justin of the portrait of Jesus that had hung on the wall behind the television in the apartment of the El Salvadorian woman who had minded him when he was small, a rosy-cheeked rendering with eyes turned hopefully, serenely skyward. 

“Dude, the fuck?” Justin grumbled, picking himself up awkwardly, his joints and muscles aching from the cold night air. “You said eleven.”

Dallas just shrugged. 

Justin bit down the irritation that wanted to surge up out of him, barely, and tamped his voice down to clipped but civil.

“You got any oxy?”

Dallas, frustratingly, shrugged again.

“Nah, man,” he drawled, offering an apologetic pout, although his tone suggested he wasn’t sorry at all. He looked like he was ready to collapse onto his bed and stare at the ceiling for the rest of the night, completely oblivious to the desperation written in Justin’s tight expression, the need in his tense shoulders and clenched hands. “Shit’s getting hard to move. Cops get on it when it gets too popular, y’know?”

Justin was certain he had never cared less about anything before in his life.

“So, what **have** you got?” he asked, trying to hold Dallas’s gaze when his attention started to wander across the parking lot. He was on the brink of snapping his fingers in the dealer’s face when his eyes, pupils shot huge and black, slid back to him.

“Just H, man,” he said, and Justin’s stomach lurched. Dallas raised a slow eyebrow. “You wanna hit it?”

Justin hesitated. 

He was, at the very most, one night away from having the cops called to remove him from the room – the reason why he had taken the pre-emptive action of washing his clothes while he had the opportunity – and all he desperately wanted was to sleep. To sleep, and not to dream. Not to have Jess’s muffled whimpers follow him into waking, almost smothered by Bryce’s placating murmurs and the locked door between them. 

_please, stop_

But heroin…

That would be like swatting a spider with a sledgehammer. Like having a bad day and stepping out in front of a train to deal with it. Like not being able to find the source of a scratching noise in the house, and burning the house down as a solution. 

He thought of his mother, sprawled on the couch, the needle still in her arm, her eyelids at half-mast while he played with miniature cars from the Goodwill store on the floor a few feet away. Of the time someone had found her in the stairwell of the building where they had been squatting in the apartment of someone she had once met through a support group for recovering addicts while they were deployed overseas, and had called the police and an ambulance, and he had had to spend the next three months living in a group home until she came to get him. Scattered memories, separated by years but all identical, her limbs, thin and brittle, splayed out on the floor, her eyes glassy and distant, that wet, gurgling wheeze as her body struggled to draw air past the vomit in her throat, the panicked thud of his heart in his chest before it seemed to go entirely still inside him, because he couldn’t lose her, he couldn’t be alone, if she was dead, he didn’t want to be alive. 

He was exhausted and terrified and achingly lonely, but heroin had cost his mother her health and her mind, and had cost him his mother. 

He couldn’t do it. No amount of peace was worth that. 

Shaking his head, Justin stooped to collect his skateboard with trembling hands.

“Nah, man,” he said, and hated the regret in his voice, even as he forced the corner of his mouth to tick upwards in a dimpled, grateful smile. “I’m good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologise for the delay with this update. Morning sickness is kicking my butt at the moment! 
> 
> My thanks, as always, to beekitties, especially with this Justin-centric chapter, and for keeping my Australianisms in check (I never realised how much I wrote about parking lots until I had to keep remembering to call them parking lots!)
> 
> Brief thanks to Tripadvisor, and my condolences to anyone who has had cause to stay at the Palms Motel, Oakland - the reviews are unedited and made it sound like a truly unwelcoming place. And also to my ex-neighbour, Dallas, for the use of your name - we only met once, when you helped us with a blown-down garage door, but the drunken antics of you and your friends made your name stick in my memory. I hope that wherever you are now, you've grown out of doing donuts on your four-wheeler in the middle of the street at two in the morning until you ran it into the side of another neighbour's car :)
> 
> The next section will be led by Bryce, and will pick up on the very briefly mentioned story of how he, Justin and Monty met, and how he built his little fiefdom at Liberty. 
> 
> Thank you for reading and commenting <3


	4. Tryouts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An expansion on how Bryce and his little kingdom came together.
> 
> There are two timelines running parallel - the first week of sophomore year and the Saturday after - I hope it's not too disjointed to follow.

Bryce kept his promises. 

When he was small, his father would pat him on the head or the shoulder – not exactly affectionate, but not dismissive, either – as he wheeled his suitcase to the front door, and Bryce would promise to keep an eye on his mother while he was away on business. And he did. He remembered everyone who came to the house, lingering at the bottom of the staircase and just outside of doorways to catch snippets of conversations, watching through the car window to see who his mother met with and where, collecting the mail when he got home from school and memorizing every sender. The information struck him as exceedingly dull and mundane – the collection of it was the fun part, sneaking around the huge house and practicing his mask of innocent disinterest – but his father always made time for him to present his report when he returned home, and that was the best part of all. Sometimes, his father just chuckled at the amount of detail he was able to regurgitate, sitting on the leather couch in his office, his sneakers dangling over the plush wool rug. Other times, he would frown and nod slowly, glancing out the window at Nora, pottering in the garden beds downstairs. 

When Bryce was twelve, they had spent the sixth dinner in a row sitting in strained silence, his parents refusing to look at one another, much less speak, until his father stood, somehow both abruptly and far overdue, and left the room. His mother had reached over to cup Bryce’s cheek, the fingertips of her other hand tracing the base of her wine glass, and asked him to promise that he wouldn’t get married unless he was absolutely certain that he was in love. Bryce had promised, despite that the idea panicked him. How would he know that he was in love? Was love what he felt for his parents? From the questions his therapists had asked over the years, he didn’t think so. Obligation, deference, a conflicted cocktail of unworthiness and disappointment, awe at his mother’s beauty and poise, envy of his father’s power and influence. He had been able to glean enough from therapy to understand that none of those ingredients combined to form love – not what love was meant to be, not love the way other people felt it. He didn’t recognise the feelings he described to his counsellors, based entirely on their own rhetoric and nothing he had ever experienced, when they asked him how he felt about his parents, and he told them what they wanted to hear. 

A week ago, he had lounged against the headboard of his California King on the evening before the first day of high school while Justin sat cross-legged on the camper bed set up along the foot of the mattress, and they promised each other that they would be kings at Liberty High School. Bryce knew – and he thought that, on some level, Justin did, too – the promise meant different things for each of them. Their loyalty to one another was equal, as natural as any other survival instinct, but their positioning in relation to each other was not, and it skewed their promises toward different applications. A king had to have absolute power, and to achieve it, there could be only one. 

Justin’s promise would make Bryce king, by supporting his rise to the top of the social food chain, by promoting and protecting him, by deferring to him and following him, in all things and without question. 

In return, Bryce’s promise was to bring Justin with him, to keep a secure hold on his wrist or his elbow and tug him under and over and around obstacles that would have been otherwise undefeatable, to build the strategy for Justin to execute that would ensure their climb, and to keep him at his side when he reached the top, sheltered and protected and warm in the glow of his privilege.

Justin wouldn’t be king, not really, but he would be the closest thing to one he could be, and Bryce didn’t think he would know the difference, anyway.

~

Sometimes, when they raced their bikes down the hill from his house, Bryce thought about letting Justin win.

Part of it was for the smile – Justin gave his dimpled grin like a gift, sometimes uncertain about how it would be received but always hopeful. Even more than those natural, careless smiles, the ones that rushed across his features all at once without shame or intent, Bryce liked the ones that were deliberately crafted, intentionally grateful, a thoughtful little token of his friendship and loyalty. 

Mostly, though, he thought about letting him win because he could. The choice was his – almost always – to take that place at the top of the podium, or to give it generously to someone else. Most of the time, he took it, with pride and enthusiasm, because that was what his father expected, and grace, because that was what his mother had taught him. Sometimes, though, it was better to give than to receive, and anyway – he never gave without receiving something in return. 

“Move your ass, Foley!” Bryce called over his shoulder, pumping his legs harder as he hit the bottom of the hill and swung a left. He thought he heard Justin curse behind him, and smiled to himself. 

Most of the time, winning was worth more.

~

In some ways, Bryce felt like he didn’t understand people. 

Certainly, there seemed to be differences that he could identify but not explain, between his thoughts and feelings and perceptions, and what was considered common or acceptable. 

Sometimes it was a frustration. It made keeping friends hard, especially when he was younger, and the making part had been easy – everyone wanted to be friends with the kid who had a pool and the latest gaming console and whose parents let him pick a friend to take on skiing holidays and long weekends to New York and Washington so that someone else would occupy his attention while they did whatever it was they did on those trips – but the maintenance of those friendships had been a game he didn’t have the rulebook for. He didn’t know which moves were frowned upon or considered cheating, and after so many missteps, most kids would rather risk the urine concentration of the water in the public swimming pools than persevere with Bryce. 

~

Eisenhower Park was two neighbourhoods over, and the blue August sky curved, cloudless, overhead as they made the ride. The pair of bmx bikes were expensive professional models, despite that Bryce had never had an interest in actual bmx racing or stunt riding. The logos had meant nothing to him, but Justin had marvelled at the brand and features when he saw them. 

The bike that Bryce rode – a gift from his father last Christmas, which he had missed, departing on Christmas Eve for unplanned business in Amsterdam, had replaced the model that Justin rode, less than a year old and all chrome and Liberty Tigers blue, abandoned to Justin’s care when he received the upgrade. Bryce had thought Justin might actually cry, the day after Christmas, when he had come over wearing the same threadbare clothes and scuffed sneakers as always, empty hands stuffed in his pockets, and Bryce had waved a dismissive hand at his old bike, discarded on the pavement by the pool while he rode loops around the outdoor furniture on the new model, his new Jordans already scuffed despite being less than a day old, and said Justin could have it. 

“Really?” Justin had asked, with a mixture of hope and apprehension that it was misplaced, and Bryce had only shrugged disinterestedly. 

Watching Justin gently lift the bike from its side, rubbing his thumb thoughtfully over a careless scratch on the frame, Bryce had wondered whether there was such a thing as Christmas TV dinners – dry turkey slices, lumpy cranberry sauce, powdery potatoes, soggy green beans and a hard little lump of stuffing. 

Gross.

Justin had stayed over nearly every night between then and New Year’s Eve, and Marisa had fed him sandwiches crammed with slices of leftover turkey and baked ham, stuffing thick with herbs and pine nuts, and honey glazed carrots, which seemed to be Justin’s favourite. 

Bryce was sick of leftovers by the end of Christmas day, and his mother didn’t seem to care whether or not he participated in making sure that the huge meal that his father had missed and his grandfather had only picked at, murmuring vaguely racist sentiments from his wheelchair until it was finally, thankfully, time to send him home, didn’t go to waste. Justin was more than up to the task, grinning shyly and raising a couple of fingers every time Marisa asked him how many sandwiches he would like. 

She had stopped asking him whether he was hungry years ago. Despite that he sometimes lied about it, the answer was always ‘yes’.

~

In other ways, Bryce felt like he understood people better than anyone. 

He had spent so much time analysing his own actions and that of others, running forensic analyses on his failed friendships, trying to determine the cause of death, that he built a library of human interaction, stacks and shelves and overflowing boxes full of index cards referencing obscure interactions – the correct facial expression to wear when someone’s pet died, the acceptable tone of voice to give an impression of remorse, the best thing to say to get out of trouble with a teacher. Over time, he came to understand what people liked and what made them uncomfortable. He was able to identify the traits that made some kids popular and other outcasts. 

Even in those situations where he didn’t feel driven toward the reaction that seemed to come naturally to others – which wasn’t all the time; instincts like envy, pain, desire, they came easily enough, it was the more nuanced feelings, sympathy, empathy, affection, that he found comparatively difficult – he learned through observation of others to replicate and apply them in the correct context, although it took some time to calibrate, and required a certain amount of control and concentration that he wasn’t always able to achieve. 

It helped being around someone expressive and free with their emotions. 

Someone like Justin. 

~

By mid-morning, there were already mothers and children at Eisenhower Park, squeals echoing from inside the rocket slide while women in yoga pants and oversized sunglasses chatted at the edge of the playground about the lack of organic lunch options on the local elementary school’s new menu. 

Bryce and Justin skirted the outside of the park, circling behind the pack of young mothers to appreciate the effort they had obviously been putting into clean eating and downward dog poses, and pedalled up to the parking lot overlooking the playground, where an old but well-maintained SUV was pulled up underneath the shade of a tree. Bryce brought his bike to a stop by the open driver’s side window without hesitation, and smiled at the older boy who sat behind the steering wheel, as if he were approaching a sales assistant for help in a store, and not the captain of the Liberty High senior wrestling team to purchase weed in the parking lot of a children’s playground. 

“Hey, Bodhi,” Bryce said as the boy glanced down at his expensive bike, then past him at Justin, perched on the other in basketball shorts and a well-worn tee, while Bryce fished a couple of bills from the pocket of his jeans. He smiled pleasantly as Bodhi crumpled the bills in his large fist. “Nice day for it, huh?”

“Nice day for what?” Bodhi muttered back, shaking his head, then leaned over to open the glovebox. He stuffed the bills inside and handed back a quarter ounce Ziploc bag in exchange. Justin eyed Bryce as he openly inspected the contents, casting a worried glance in the direction of the mothers’ group at the edge of the park.

“Don’t you ever worry you’ll get caught, selling here?” Justin asked over Bryce’s shoulder, the words he chose to emphasise suggesting that the statement wasn’t intended for the boy in the car at all, and Bryce chuckled.

“Make it easier to visit your old man, right?” he grinned, and Bodhi offered him a dark, wordless look in return. Smile never faltering, Bryce reached in to the truck to slap the larger boy on the arm, before wheeling his bike around, calling loudly over his shoulder. 

“Pleasure doing business with you, bud.”

~

Objectively, Justin was exactly the type of person prone to popularity. He had an ease with others, a natural desire to make them feel comfortable even at his own expense, a natural humility and a self-deprecating sense of humour, an easy smile that lit his face when he unleashed it, an relaxed charm and a carefully curated repertoire of puppy dog eyes that could unlock even the most stubborn of cold, unfeeling hearts. But all of those traits could only take him so far. That dimpled smile couldn’t erase tattered, too-small sneakers, or a grubby, fall-apart goodwill backpack, or taking a sack lunch to school every day, if he brought anything at all. 

That was where Bryce came in.

The king needed a worthy right-hand man, and Justin couldn’t be that on his own, but he could with Bryce. 

And it wasn’t even hard. A new pair of shoes, new school supplies packed in a new backpack, a credit card attached to his cafeteria account. A summer spent running football drills until Justin could catch and pass a football almost as confidently as he could handle a basketball, because basketball and baseball were all well and good, but kings were made on the football field. 

The honey bronze tan and toned arms from football practice. The haircut that Justin kept running his fingers through, looking at himself in the mirror at the barber’s shop in town while Bryce watched his reflection with a lopsided smile. Even the scale and clean at their family dentist that his mother had raised an eyebrow at footing the bill for, and Justin had complained endlessly about, twisting his hands together nervously in the waiting room, although he had run his tongue over his teeth in hesitant awe after their appointments were over, and had rewarded the receptionist with a blinding white smile when she had asked gently how he had found the procedure. 

It had all been worth it. 

Because it had worked – of course. 

~

As Bryce cruised toward the bottom of the park, Justin cast an anxious look at the mothers in the park below, but they seemed entirely preoccupied with gossiping about the school’s announcement that a graduate would be joining their teaching staff this year, which was **certainly** below the level of expertise they expected for the fees they were paying, and apparently more demanding of their attention than the little girl who tumbled into the sand as a boy almost twice her size shoved her from the swing set. Justin watched her clamber to her feet, mouth pressed into a hard line to hold back tears as she brushed the sand from her knees. She didn’t try to take the swing back, or approach the group of adults, moving instead to line up for a turn on the rocket slide, while the boy swung high and careless. 

After a moment, Justin realised that Bodhi was watching him through the open truck window, a hint of curiosity narrowing his eyes and, feeling suddenly exposed, he turned to follow Bryce.

“The fuck you hang out with that asshole for, dude?”

Justin hesitated, one foot balanced on the pedal and poised to push off. Bryce, rounding the bottom of the hill, seemed to realise that he hadn’t followed, and turned his head to look for him, calling impatiently. 

“Justy, c’mon!”

Justin glanced at Bodhi, who watched him quietly. 

He lifted his shoulder in a shrug, and pushed off down the hill. 

Bryce rode slowly enough for him to catch up as he turned the corner toward the Blue Spot Liquor Store, weaving patterns on the sidewalk, the pungent baggie of weed tucked carelessly into the pocket of his jeans. 

“What the fuck, man? You hanging back to give him your number or something?” Bryce laughed as Justin pedalled up alongside him. He pursed his lips and made exaggerated kissing sounds at the other boy. “You want him to teach you some wrestling moves? See how they translate in the bedroom?”

Justin rolled his eyes.

“Get fucked, dude.”

Bryce laughed, casting a glance over his shoulder at the old SUV perched at the top of the park as the squeals and voices of the children on the playground faded beneath the hum of traffic and the nearby train line. 

Bryce had seen Bodhi wrestle – his father’s company had sponsored last year’s championship meet. He was good – strong and determined, clean technique and genuine respect – he shook the hands of his opponents every time, win or lose. But he wasn’t good enough for any college recruiter to overlook a father in prison on a drug distribution charge, a mother who worked three jobs, or a sister pregnant and dropped out at fifteen. He would leave Liberty with a high school diploma and a C- average, probably go full time at the hardware store where he worked weekends, and spend the rest of his life supporting his sister and bastard nephew, telling stories about who he used to be. 

A waste, Bryce’s father had said, when kids like that had natural talent.

~

Only a week in to the school year, and even before the selections for the Liberty Tigers junior varsity football team had been posted on Friday afternoon, Bryce and Justin were already on the receiving end of blushing looks and smiles from girls in the hallways. And that was important – despite that they mostly wielded their influence for and against one another, girls could carry or break the reputation of anyone in the school through gossip and rumours alone. But Bryce knew that the ones with the real power on campus were the boys, and to uphold his end of the promise he and Justin had made, he had to identify which of them had the greatest amount and who had the capacity to weaponize it. 

When he was king – and that was simply a matter of time – he could choose to associate with whoever he felt like, but for now he needed to be selective with his choices. He needed to bring to his side not only the boys who were most likely to be useful, but also those who were potentially dangerous competitors to the throne if left uncontrolled. 

At football tryouts, Bryce had selected one of each. 

~

**the Baron**

The heat of the sun had beat down on the late afternoon tryouts, drawing sweat on their foreheads while Coach Morris droned about how everyone should try their best and hold nothing back, although there were far more hopefuls than they needed to make up the junior varsity team, and not everyone was going to be good enough to earn a place. 

As if any of that applied to Bryce. 

His father’s company had written the cheque that had paid for the clipboard in the coach’s hand, the whistle hanging from the lanyard around his neck, the shoulder pads and helmets that the assisting staff handed around to the hopefuls to tug on over their mismatched t-shirts and sweats. Aside from Bryce, the only other boy wearing a Liberty Tigers tee had been Zach Dempsey, a tall, broad-shouldered kid who seemed uncomfortable with his size and the guarded, envious glances it earned him from the other boys. 

Bryce made a point of keeping an eye on Dempsey as the coaching staff broke them up into groups based on the positions they had signed up to be considered for. He was unsurprised and a little amused to find that Zach was one of the boys who would be competing against him for the position of quarterback. He had figured somebody would – everyone wanted to be king, right? – but he hadn’t expected any genuine competition. The other boy was fast and strong, determined but humble. Bryce pushed himself hard to keep pace with Zach’s long stride through the forty-yard sprint drill, patting the taller boy on the shoulder with a smile when he recorded the faster time by a hair. Zach was all polite humility, aware of the fact that his size and ability surpassed most of the other boys and somehow embarrassed by it, which Bryce found puzzling. 

“Nice job, Dempsey,” he called as the other boy made his third impressive catch of the afternoon, and Zach ducked his head, waving a hand in awkward thanks as his cheeks flushed pink behind the grill of his helmet.

Interesting.

~

Predictably, Justin was on board with recruiting Zach as a new friend.

“He’s nice,” Justin said, floating across the surface of the swimming pool on an inflatable sunbed the following afternoon. 

He frowned behind his sunglasses when Bryce, sitting at the edge of the pool with his legs dangling in the water and the bong from the pool house on the pavers beside him, snorted his amusement. Justin attempted an easy shrug, but it was clearly an attempt at recovering the apparently misplaced compliment. He fumbled to explain as he paddled with one hand toward the edge of the pool. 

“I mean, like, he’s cool. We had Biology together, and we got assigned as lab partners, and then when we found out we had Geography together as well, he just, like, saved me a seat… or whatever…”

Bryce chuckled as Justin’s explanation trailed off with the realisation that, far from rescuing his fumble, he was digging himself a deeper hole for the other boy to push him into and start shovelling dirt in after him. 

“You should offer to write his grindr bio, dude,” Bryce teased, grinning crookedly as he handed Justin the bong. He framed up an imaginary quote between his hands. “He’s nice. He saved me a seat or whatever. It wasn’t on his dick, but I still appreciated it.”

Justin rolled his eyes, but smiled good naturedly as Bryce handed him a cigarette lighter.

“C’mon, man. You know he’d pull the chicks, too.”

Bryce scoffed, waving him off as Justin flicked the lighter, the flame reflecting on his clearwater blue eyes as he tipped his head down to inhale and his sunglasses slid down his nose. 

“Dempsey? Fucking virgin, one-hundred-percent, guarantee it.”

Justin choked on a laugh and smoke blasted from his nose as he struggled not to drop the bong or tip its contents into the pool. 

“ _Dude_ ,” he croaked in protest, his breath iced with pale grey wisps.

Bryce ginned and shrugged.

It was fucking true. 

And anyway, that wasn’t what interested him in considering Zach for a position amongst them. 

He had done his research – more thoroughly than Justin, who was apparently won over easily enough by being saved a seat in class – and, as he had suspected when he had spotted the other boy’s Tiger’s tee at practice, Zach Dempsey was the only freshman within leagues of matching his family for wealth and influence. His father was a bank manager who sat on the Evergreen council and his mother was a buyer for some trendy middle-aged women’s clothing designer who joined every community advocacy group and took up every chairing position going to ensure a steady flow of town gossip. They drove Mercedes SUV’s and lived in an architect designed house on the opposite side of the same subdivision as the Walkers and, as Justin had so plainly put it, they were _nice_. A nice, attractive, mixed-race family contributing to uplifting their community, all wearing matching squeaky clean smiles in their perfect family portraits. 

Bryce wasn’t interested in how nice Zach was. He was interested in how easily the other boy might rival him for the throne. 

He’d won Justin over, easily enough.

But that was OK. Justin would always belong to Bryce. And, with a little effort, so would Zach.

The most effective way to eliminate any rivalry would be to snuff it out through close proximity. 

Bryce could play nice. He would have to, to hold on to the crown.

But that meant he needed someone who was willing to play dirty to keep him clean. 

~

**the Sheriff**

To finish off the tryouts, the coaches split them up into two teams, handing out armbands to differentiate them, Bryce quarterback and captain for one group and Zach the other. Part of him was frustrated when Justin was allocated to a wide receiver position on Zach’s team – they had been practicing passing and catching drills all summer and he was finally able to trust the other boy’s ability to receive the ball without fumbling it out of eagerness or nerves – but he wasn’t displeased overall with his line-up. He was allocated the biggest linesman on the field, a blonde kid the others referred to as Holliday, who was a hopeful for center position and had the right combination of build, reflexes and obedience to instruction to succeed, and a quick, robust running back called Scott, who listened attentively as Bryce directed them on their defensive positions. 

Some of the boys stared back at him blankly as he attempted to rally them, and Bryce tamped down his simmering frustration, telling himself that, as long as they got in the way of the opposition offense as they ran their play, Zach having won the coin toss, their ability to grasp defensive manoeuvres wasn’t important. 

One of his allocated defensive backs, a sturdy, fast and aggressive strong safety who had outrun most of the hopefuls he had been paired against in sprints, thrown himself fearlessly into tackle drills against kids much bigger than he was – knocking Zach to the pitch hard enough to wind him - and proven capable, although not as naturally talented as some of the other boys, at catching and passing manoeuvres, watched Bryce intently as he instructed the group, meeting his gaze directly as he gave his final direction.

“ _Do not_ let Dempsey reach that end zone.”

The safety’s gaze slid sideways, across the field to where Zach was rallying his team. The tall boy reached over to pat Justin’s shoulder encouragingly, and Bryce watched Justin’s smile gleam bright under the mid-afternoon sun. The safety cocked a curious eyebrow, turning an assessing look toward Bryce.

“What about your boy?” he asked, as the rest of the team broke away to stretch and chat and find their positions along the fifty-yard line. “Foley. He off limits?”

Bryce eyed the other boy, realising that as much as he had been observing and assessing the other boys on the field, he had been watched as well, and his protectiveness of Justin had been identified. It was frustrating, to have been pegged so easily, but it was useful to know his own tells, and it told him something about the safety as well – the fact that he not only revealed his ability to recognise the connection between Bryce and Justin, and the potential weakness it represented, but that he asked permission to attack it. The other boy didn’t want to lead, but he didn’t want to be on the bottom of the heap either. He was all coiled up energy and fight response, bouncing on the balls of his feet, just waiting to be aimed at someone and fired. 

That was something Bryce could work with. 

He raised his shoulder in an unaffected shrug.

“Do what you gotta do, brother.”

The other boy looked at him for a moment, and Bryce thought that he saw a hint of something that looked like disappointment behind the grill of his helmet, but it was swept aside quickly by cocky confidence and destructive glee as the corner of his mouth twitched toward a smile, and he turned to take his position along the defensive line.

The moment that Zach made his call and Bryce saw Justin sprint off to the left, even as their linesmen slammed into one another with a chorus of grunting and cursing, he recognised the reverse play. He turned to call instruction to the defensive backs, who were honing in on the halfback that Zach snapped the ball to, following the fake-out in the exact direction that Dempsey wanted them to, already moving to far in the wrong direction to recover in time to cut off the next stage of the play. Cursing as he moved to make the intercept himself, Bryce spotted the strong safety stalking the line of scrimmage ahead of him, trotting at first and then building up speed to match Justin’s trajectory. He slowed his own pace, watching the other boy tracking Justin’s progress, slipping easily around other players, adjusting his pace to time his attack.

Justin took the pass from the halfback perfectly, scooping the ball against his flank without hesitation, and Bryce almost - _almost_ \- felt sorry for him when he slipped through a gap in the scrimmage only to be slammed to the ground by the safety’s shoulder ducked and aimed directly at his solar plexus. 

Bryce jogged over to where Justin lay groaning on the pitch, the safety circling around his prone form to casually scoop up the ball that rolled, forgotten, from his grasp. If the jarring impact of the hit had rattled him, he didn’t show it. Bryce bent down to help Justin up as Zach trotted over to reach for Justin’s other arm and drag the boy to his feet. He sagged slightly, but made an effort to shake it off, if only for the benefit of the boys around him, the safety sweeping him with an open, assessing glance. 

“Dude, nice hit,” Bryce commented, cocking his chin at the safety. “It’s de la Cruz, right?”

The other boy looked at him guardedly from behind the grill of his helmet. 

“Yeah,” he said. “Monty.”

~

Equally unsurprising was Justin’s hesitation to consider Monty for a position amongst them. 

“I don’t know, man,” Justin had commented, cagily, one hand absently rubbing his chest as they walked along the foreshore in the early evening, passing a bottle of ginger beer topped up liberally with whiskey from Bryce’s father’s liquor cabinet between them, the lights of the beachside restaurants and cafes twinkling on the gentle waves while men in rubber overalls clambered around the rocks beneath the pier, fishing for crabs. “He seems like a loose cannon.”

Bryce shook his head dismissively as he passed the bottle to Justin. 

“Nah. Just needs something to aim at, is all.”

Justin didn’t look convinced, but there were three things he considered about that:

The first and foremost being that Bryce didn’t care. 

More than Zach, whose influence he was confident he could reduce from a distance, if he had to, Bryce wanted Monty. Justin wasn’t wrong about the cannon part – he had all of the destructive force of one – and Bryce was far more interested in lighting the fuse and taking aim than being on the receiving end. In some ways, Monty was like Zach – he had the face and build to draw appreciation from girls, and the athleticism and brashness to earn respect and admiration from other guys. The boyish freckles dotted across his nose softened the edges of the almost painfully typical ‘bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks’ persona that he exuded seemingly without trying, and it was a clever deception, Bryce thought, that small hint of natural camouflage, because bad was what he was – beneath that pretty but violent mask was a boy capable of destruction and cruelty, absent the sweetness and discomfiture that Zach seemed to wear like a second skin. In other ways, Monty was like Justin, and that was likely the problem – he was enough like Justin for the other boy to feel threatened, both by the ways that they were similar and the ways that they were different. To Bryce, it was of minor consideration. It simply meant adjusting his practiced approach to get the best of those capabilities that Monty had and Justin did not. 

The second was that Justin, as always, was easily placated. Bryce had spotted the opportunity a mile away, written all over Justin’s hesitant posture and the way that he ducked his head, an easily spotted precursor to his well-practiced puppy dog eyes.

“What do you want?” Bryce had asked, as sigh in his voice like a weary parent, before the other boy had even opened his mouth to ask.

What Justin wanted was love and, as per usual, in the absence of any kind or reliable or supportive affection from his own mother, he sought it in places that he shouldn’t. Like the acidly sarcastic, whip smart, dirty blonde in his English class. Bryce knew Kat from their shared History class – she sat two desks to the right and one forward from him, not even trying to hide the fact that she was doodling on the back of her hand, sprawled over her desk, after Coach Patrick put on a questionably historical video and turned out the classroom lights. Kat struck Bryce as the kind of girl who both enjoyed and hated the attention of boys, who attracted it for the purpose of rejecting it, dressing in a weird combination of mostly black alt-punk mixed with skin tight jeans that bared the alabaster skin at the base of her back when she leaned over, her long hair loose and wild and enticing. A girl like her would eviscerate Justin.

“I just thought,” Justin said, aiming for uncaring and failing miserably, the pink colouring his cheeks giving away exactly how much Bryce’s positive response would mean to him. “If we’re having, like, a gathering, or whatever, on Saturday, and there are gonna be other people there anyway, then maybe I could see if she wants to hang out?”

Other people. Bryce, Justin, Zach, and Monty. And Bryce had seen the way that Kat looked at boys like them. Like she was both repulsed and helplessly drawn to them. Which one, exactly, seemed less important. If Justin couldn’t see that he was inviting the girl to a smorgasbord where he was probably not even second or third most appetizing offering, well…

Bryce had smiled.

“Of course, dude. Ask her.”

The third, Monty provided himself. 

The first Friday morning of the school year, a few days after try-outs and the day before they planned to get together at Bryce’s house, they had been heading to the hallway outside of the coaching offices, where the selection list would be posted for the junior varsity team. Justin had been full of nervous energy, turning to walk backwards as he explained to Bryce his theory about why he thought he would be best suited to being coached as part of Kerba’s defensive group ( _“Coach Morris is hard but fair, but I mean, Kerba just gives a shit, you know? Like, he gives a shit if you give a shit.”_ ) Bryce had reached out to catch Justin’s arm as he turned, but not in time to keep him from running bodily into a junior roughly the size and shape of a refrigerator, who was checking the hockey team selections with a buddy perhaps a hair larger than he was.

“Shit. Sorry, man,” Justin had unfurled that dimpled smile, and it had gone exactly nowhere toward lightening the scowl that darkened the larger boy’s face as he looked down at his white sneakers and the dirty smudge Justin had left on one. He squared up, drawing himself to his full height and straightening his huge shoulders, and Bryce had felt Justin wilting involuntarily at his side. 

Justin could fight – scrappily, desperately – if he needed to, but he wasn’t naturally driven to it. If he had an option to escape, to avoid conflict, he would grasp that opportunity with both hands, every time. He had no innate instinct for saving face. For him, self-preservation won without question and regardless of circumstance. Despite that Bryce stood firmly at his side, facing the two larger boys with a cocky, inviting smile and an unflinching stare, Justin’s gaze had flicked out across the hallway, scanning for an escape route, and lit on one he hadn’t expected as Monty appeared beside him. 

All of that fight instinct that Justin lacked was multiplied in Monty, as if it were more natural to him than any other impulse, as if confrontation was something to be sought and not avoided, like he thrived on it, the idea of being hurt inconsequential to the opportunity to hurt someone else. 

And with the three of them standing shoulder to shoulder, Justin slightly – reluctantly – bolstered by their superior numbers, Monty locked and loaded with mad dog, hair trigger devastation and Bryce raising an amused eyebrow in challenge, the older boys had backed off, scoffing dismissively and muttering insults as they walked away. 

Bryce could see the anxious pulse fluttering in Justin’s throat as he turned toward Monty.

“Hey, thanks for the backup, buddy.”

Monty, who had already stepped around them to look at the team listing pinned to the wall a few feet away, entirely calm as if he hadn’t been a fraction of a second from throwing a punch, shrugged.

“Whatever,” he said, adding over his shoulder as he walked away. “Congrats on making quarterback.”

~

**the Court**

After a detour to the Blue Spot to load up on snacks, the clerk casting them a curious glance as Bryce trailed the damp, sweet scent of the contents of his pocket around the store, they raced one another back to the house, trailing ropes of raspberry liquorice from the corners of their mouths as they laughed and goaded each other on. As they crested the hill and followed the curve around toward the Walker house, three figures came into view standing at the bottom of the driveway. 

Zach, standing furthest away, stood a full head and shoulders over Kat, and had almost the same height advantage over Monty, despite that he folded his arms, as if doing so might somehow make him appear smaller. Kat, dressed in destroyed denim jeans and a black lace camisole, her curls loose and unruly over her shoulders despite the heat, and Monty, standing between them with a skateboard dangling from one hand, stared up at the huge house, awe and curiosity common between them, although Kat’s expression hinted at something like disgust while Monty just looked sort of angry. 

Zach’s mother’s Mercedes SUV was parked at the top of the driveway, and Bryce was both unsurprised and amused that, not only had the other boy been escorted by his mother, she had apparently not been content to leave him to his playdate without insisting on meeting Bryce’s own parents, first. 

He grinned as they rode up to meet the trio, queueing a jibe for Zach that faded almost as quickly as it formed. 

“Ho-ly shit!”

Bryce dismounted his bike by simply letting it go, throwing one leg over and allowing it to fall as he hit the footpath at a jog, abandoning the toppled bike with its scratched frame and still spinning back wheel at the edge of the lawn. Without hesitation, he reached for Monty and, when the boy flinched back from the hand that grasped the side of his head, attempting to duck out of the hold, Bryce raised his other hand to the boy’s jaw, holding him still. Monty’s right hand tightened around the trucks of his skateboard and the other curled into a fist, but both remained by his sides, even as the boy went defensively rigid, like every instinct in him was recoiling, spooling, preparing to defend against an attack, or maybe to launch one. His jaw tightened as Bryce leaned close enough to smell the raspberry liquorice that had stained his gums candy pink when he smiled, fascinated. 

“Justin, come look at this.”

Justin lay his bike down next to Bryce’s and stepped closer, but only enough not to be asked again. From a handful of paces away, he could see perfectly well – the blue and gold-edged bruise that spread from the curve of Monty’s eye socket halfway down his right cheek, and the tense, cautionary glare that the other boy shot at him, warning him back, like a cornered animal. Justin wanted to tell Bryce to let go – he wasn’t sure what would happen if he didn’t, except that it probably wasn’t going to be good – but he bit his tongue. 

“This isn’t from tryouts,” Bryce said, and it wasn’t phrased as a question, but that was exactly what it was. 

“I dunno,” Zach shrugged, looking like he wanted to shrink his broad frame in on itself and disappear. “He tackled me pretty damn hard.”

Kat shifted her weight, leaning into Bryce’s field of vision. The look she gave him was unabashedly challenging, her eyes dark with judgement.

“What do you expect him to say?” she spoke with a directness that very few people did, at least to him, so that it edged past surprising and into irritating. She raised an eyebrow at Bryce, unrelenting. “Some guy punched him in the face? Is that what you want to hear?”

Justin was silent and still behind him, hesitation to intervene and regret at having contributed to bringing them together this way splashed all over his face. Zach looked away toward the house, as if he were contemplating scampering inside to ask his mother to take him home. 

“It wasn’t some guy,” Monty said, the muttered words flicking a release valve on the tension spiralling amongst them. In the muted moment that followed, he looked at Bryce, and didn’t try to remove the other boy’s lingering grip on him. “It was my dad.”

Bryce’s instinct was to smile, but he knew that was the wrong reaction – the wrong outward projection, anyway – so he tucked it away inside. It had taken him months and months to find Justin’s key. Granted, he had been less practised at it then, but Justin had also been highly protective of his secrets, or those he was able to keep, at least. The grubby, unclean clothes, the too small shoes and tattered backpack, the missing lunches, the fact that he hadn’t been to a dentist in nearly his whole life and his almost complete lack of vaccination records were all obvious parts of the equation, but he tried to keep the answers hidden as much as he could, using misdirection and avoidance and outright lies to cast doubt over his mother’s addiction and neglect, his father’s absence, the abuse at the hands of boyfriends and fiancés and whoever else Amber allowed to attach themselves to her life, or leeched from herself, so that Bryce had had to piece it together like a puzzle turned over, the pieces available to him to put together but the picture obscured until he completed it. 

And here was this boy, handing him padlock and key, willingly and, it seemed to Bryce, intentionally. 

It struck Bryce that this wasn’t the first time that Monty had admitted so plainly to something that most kids, instinctively, took extreme measures to hide – not the first time that he had said ‘this is what it is’, openly and, Bryce had to assume, had received the same awkward silence that met the admission now. Because what in the world did you say to a boy who offered, unreservedly, the knowledge that his father beat him, and followed it with nothing, no expectation, no request for intervention, just left it open for those hearing it to decide what to do with it, if anything? Bryce thought it was probably likely that, in most cases, the answer was _nothing_.

Which made his next move achingly easy.

“Hey, buddy,” he said, and let Monty go, more gently than he might have otherwise, thoughtfully, aware of Justin’s gaze on him as he did it. “It’s cool. All dads are fucking assholes.” 

Bryce looked back at Justin, who had no option but to shrug his agreement – what was he going to do, protest that the deadbeat who knocked up his mother and disappeared wasn’t an asshole? - and Kat, who stared at him guardedly, although her posture softened very slightly. Monty didn’t seem to know what to do with the response, and simply watched Bryce wordlessly, his expression flat and unreadable. 

“My dad’s kinda great,” Zach offered hesitantly, and Bryce scoffed, breaking into a lopsided grin.

“Of course he is, Dempsey,” he said, and cocked his head toward the house. “Come on. I’ll show you around.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK, so I feel like it's not quite 'the Witcher' level broken in terms of concurrent timelines, but I hope it wasn't too broken to keep track of!
> 
> Apologies again for the delaying updating - I'm so, so slow at writing these days and I'm hesitant to lose a buffer of a scene or two in draft, so I've been slowing down on posting a little bit. 
> 
> Thank you beekitties for the surprise gift of your feedback on this chapter - this one that I felt very uncertain about, especially writing from Bryce's perspective for the first time, and your kind words made me smile, as always!
> 
> Some appearances from a few extra characters here (oh how I wish Kat was in this series more!!). 
> 
> Next section up is Monty, and a speculative explanation for how Scott "nice jock" Reed came to know about the hobo hotel.
> 
> Thanks for reading and commenting, as always <3


	5. the Hobo Hotel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A speculative explanation for how Scott came to know about the hobo hotel.

Monty had been staring at the ceiling of the clubhouse for hours.

The couch smelled like stale beer and spilled bong water and teenage boys; cheap cologne and sweat and tiger balm and gym socks, but he had slept – tried to sleep – in plenty of worse places. The small wooden structure was built for storing sports equipment and not for comfort, so the late evening chill crept in through the crack beneath the door and around the ill-fitted window frames, whistling eerily. It was a distraction he could have done without. He had grown used to sleeping lightly; part of him always attuned to the sound of approaching footsteps or shouting from another room, a survival instinct developed out of necessity, so that even after the longest day of work and school and sports, when he flopped onto his mattress, boneless and exhausted, falling almost immediately into sleep, some little sliver of his consciousness remained alert and prepared to shock him into sudden wakefulness, adrenalin providing the energy reserve needed to slip quietly out through his bedroom window, if he was quick enough.

Avoidance had always been the safest option, but it wasn’t always possible, and it wasn’t the only one he had tried. 

Cradling his ribs with one hand, Monty rolled onto his side, turning away from the dull moonlight slanting through the dirty window. 

When he was small, he had gotten the idea that violence between parents and their children was wrong. Not spanking, maybe. That seemed to be debatable. Although it was irrelevant - his mother had never spanked him, and neither had his father – the earliest punishment he could remember was wailing in the back seat of the car at three years old, and his father twisting back from the driver’s seat to slap him in the face, stunning him into silence. He wasn’t sure where the idea that it was wrong had come from. It seemed an amalgamation of passing comments from teachers and adults, carefully presented themes in television shows, and news stories he only half understood. It was something that adults seemed to dislike talking about, something that made them uncomfortable, the wrongness of it so undeniable that they would rather avoid it altogether. 

Back then, Monty thought he understood. It was scary to him, too. The sharp edge of his father’s voice, the flat, dark hate in his eyes, the dread that lurked beneath every other emotion, because even if his father was smiling, even if he was laughing, even when he wasn’t drunk or mean or talking to him or even in the same room as him, that didn’t mean that the situation wouldn’t twist, like a switch had been flipped, like every breath he had taken that day had been acceptable, but the most recent one – the one he had just exhaled – that was wrong or too loud or had tipped all of a sudden into too many, and that was all it took. 

Kids were a lot more open to talking about that sort of thing. 

That very first time that he had ever climbed through the window into Chloe’s bedroom, not even quite seven years old, with rain water dripping from his clothes and hair, diluting the blood that ran from his nose and other his mouth and chin, she had come right out and said it. She had had the same room for as long as she had lived in that house – back then, it had been scantly furnished with a narrow single bed, made neatly with pale pink sheets and a quilt printed with pastel coloured ponies, a tidy arrangement of stuffed animals in one corner, a small plastic table with two chairs by the door, her doll propped in one, the pink tea set laid out as if she were preparing to entertain guests. Chloe had shucked off the rain coat she had fastened over her nightgown, hanging the dripping garment from the door knob, and peered at Monty in the dark where he stood by the window, shivering and avoiding her gaze.

“Did your dad hit you?”

No one had ever asked him that before. 

A part of him had felt instinctively driven to lie, to deny it, to protect his father, because if he did that, maybe it would prove something. Maybe he wouldn’t hurt him again.

But he had never been a good liar, not even then. 

And anyway, even at six, Chloe had been perceptive, whip smart and unafraid of it. It wasn’t a question. It was a measure of his reaction to what they both knew to be true. 

He didn’t want to fail her, not even then, not even when all he had known about her was her name and the pink plastic tea set. 

Monty had shrugged, non-committal, and Chloe’s fair eyebrows had drawn together in a frown.

“He shouldn’t do that, you know?”

Monty knew. 

By then, he had known, but he had no idea what to do with that knowledge. His first-grade teacher would glance down at the bruises on his arms as she passed by his desk, and he would look up at her, waiting for her to say something, ask something, anything, but the directness of his gaze seemed to frighten her, and she would move away without comment. His second-grade teacher had shaken his head when Monty came to class missing his two front teeth, his jaw bruised black. _You must be the most accident-prone kid I’ve ever met_ , he said with a crooked smile. The lady behind the cash register at the supermarket stole glances at the plum-coloured bruise slung beneath his eye where he stood with one hand holding the edge of the shopping cart – the rule since he had decided he was too big to ride in the cart while his mother loaded cans and boxes and bottles in around him – but every time he looked back at her, her eyes flicked back to the scanner. 

After a while, Monty had decided that if what his father was doing was wrong, but no one was stopping him, then they must not realise that he was doing it. 

It took him some time to build up the courage, but one evening when he had been eight, humidity had been pressing in, forced along by the summer storm rolling across the town from the bay, and all that pressure and sticky heat had resulted in wide open windows – all up and down the house – and a foul temper stewing behind his father’s expression, which had tipped into rage when Monty had neglected to tuck his chair back in beneath the table after they had finished dinner. His father had yanked him back by the arm, and a scream had torn out of him so loud and raw and unexpected that it shocked even him, the base desperation of it slicing through him as it burst from his throat. His mother, standing at the sink carefully loading dishes into the soapy water, had gone very still, and his father had grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, slamming him back against the wall.

“The fuck do you think you’re doing?”

Monty had looked past his mother at the open kitchen windows above the sink, the lights on in the neighbour’s house next door visible over the fence. His father had turned his head to look, and didn’t seem to understand. 

“You’re not allowed to hurt me,” Monty had told him, aiming for confidence that, by the time the words shook loose from him, had dissolved to a half-hopeful murmur. His father’s fist pinned him to the wall, his knuckles jammed bruisingly hard against his collarbone. “When they find out, someone’s going to stop you.” He wilted under the venomous look his father turned back to him. “They’ll take you to jail.”

For a moment, his father had just looked at him, and a very small, dim spark of hope had flickered deep and low in his chest.

Then the corners of his father’s eyes had crinkled with amusement.

“Let me show you something.”

Grabbing the boy by the scruff of the neck, he had marched him the length of the house to the open front door, shoving open the flyscreen and thrusting him over the threshold. Monty had stumbled, dread and regret winding through him, as his father shoved him again, sending him to his hands and knees on the dry, dying lawn. Across the street, the neighbour’s doors and windows were open in an attempt to catch a cooling breeze, lights glowing in kitchen windows and the dim blue glow of television screens illuminating their living rooms. 

“You think the reason no one comes to your rescue is because they don’t know?” his father asked, incredulous, amused, angry, and when Monty didn’t respond, turning his head to avoid his look as he circled to his left, he aimed a booted kick at his ribs as punishment. Monty bit back a groan, because it didn’t seem to matter how much noise he made – his father’s voice was raised to a volume that suggested the words were intended more for the neighbours than for him. “They know,” his father assured him, the words offered almost entirely without tone, as if he were simply sharing an indisputable fact. “They just don’t fucking care.”

Monty saw it coming but hadn’t been quick enough to dodge the second kick, and pain bloomed along his side as he tumbled into an ungainly slide down the steep slope of the yard, scraping his elbows and hands as the scrabbled for purchase, attempting to scramble away, involuntary tears stinging at the corners of his eyes. He knew that he wasn’t smart, but this had to be the stupidest thing he had ever attempted. He had never challenged his father. His mother never had, either. No one ever did. And when he had tried to sit up, to gain a crouch that he could launch an escape from, and his father’s boot slammed him to ground, his heel at the base of his throat, grinding against his collarbone, it seemed obvious why.

“They don’t care-” his father reiterated, leaning down, the weight on the boy’s chest increasing until an involuntary sob bubbled out of him, earning him a disgusted sneer. “-because they know you deserve it.”

That had turned out to be true.

In the dark, Monty counted the loose threads on the back of the clubhouse couch with wandering fingertips, a mantra that sometimes helped to bring on the lull of sleep, but at the same time, his subconscious made a different list, flicking through the items of evidence that his father had been right.

1\. No one stopped him that night. A few neighbours closed their windows or doors, to block out the noise, but no one intervened.

2\. The police didn’t arrive, because no one called them, or if they did, then they didn’t care enough to attend.

3\. When he had wound up at the hospital in the early hours of the morning, it was because his mother had convinced his father that a delayed visit would make the circumstances seem less like an accident. 

4\. The doctor who had asked to see his father’s hands had apologised when they were offered and, aside from a few nicks and scratches from the work site, were free of bruises. The smear of blood on the steel-toe of his boot had blended with the dirt and paint and cement.

5\. He missed a week of school, and when he had returned, his teacher had clucked her tongue at his sling. _See, this is why adults tell you to be careful climbing trees_ , she had chastised, and he had no idea where she had gotten that suggestion from, but he didn’t try to correct her.

Monty hadn’t ever tried to challenge his father again, but he couldn’t help but try to work with the knowledge that he deserved the beatings. 

At first, he thought that it must be because of something he did – or didn’t do. And that he could control. He experimented with different adjustments – he tried to improve his behaviour at school, tried to be nicer and more placid, like the other kids, pressing down his instinctive fight response, to be less aggressive, to let down the mask of anger that he used to obscure his fear and lack of confidence, letting them walk all over him, to the point that Chloe finally had enough and kicked a smarmy, intolerable boy that Monty had fought with several times since they had started elementary school in the crotch for teasing them about being poor as they walked home from school one day, while Monty simply stood by wordlessly. 

The lack of notes sent home about the fights he had been in or detentions he had been punished with didn’t seem to make any difference, so he focussed instead on studying. His father had always insisted he was stupid – maybe if he wasn’t, he would hate him less. Chloe was the smartest person he knew, and although she much preferred spending time together skateboarding and jumping off of the pier to see who could make the biggest splash and teaching him how to Dutch braid because she couldn’t reach the back of her head properly, she agreed to spend each alternate afternoon sitting at the kitchen table while her mother and step-dad were at work, completing their homework together. She patiently explained math problems and corrected his spelling, teaching him acronyms and explaining the concept of what she called the ‘fairy e’, and how it impacted the pronunciation of words. The language that his teachers wrote in his report cards morphed from descriptions of distraction, disinterest and poor comprehension to cautious praise of his effort, noting an improvement in his engagement and application to lessons. One teacher referred to him as _conscientious_ and, worried that it might mean something bad, he had asked Chloe before he gave the report card to his parents. She had smiled proudly, explaining that it meant that he tried hard, wanted to do well, and took his work seriously. It made him feel sort of warm and sort of embarrassed, to be described that way. Before they had parted ways at the corner on their way home from school, Chloe had reached over and squeezed his hand.

But none of that had made any difference, either. His father had barely glanced at the report card and later, when it started raining and the weather forecast confirmed that his work would be rained out the next day, took his frustration out on Monty with his fists and his belt. 

Monty tried sports – he was a physical kid, fast and strong and unafraid of the risk of being hurt, all traits that gelled well with most team and competitive sports - but his father wasn’t interested in seeing him play, found practices a frustrating inconvenience that he didn’t want to have to cart him back and forth to, refused to pay membership fees or contribute to any parent coaching rosters, and couldn’t have cared less about the trophies or medals that he earned. 

He tried modifying his behaviour at home – if he didn’t deserve it because he was a troublesome kid or a poor student or an underachiever, maybe it was something more subtle, something more closely linked to the time and space that he shared with his father. He tried making himself scarce, either by staying away from the house or keeping out of his father’s way in his bedroom, but that just made him angry when he couldn’t find him and wanted an outlet for whatever had angered him at that moment. He tried apologising – even if he wasn’t sure what he had done wrong, even if he was quite sure he hadn’t done anything wrong, even when it wasn’t working and one blow after another rained down on him and his voice was cracking with effort to keep going, even when it started to feel like he was apologising for the beating itself, like he was causing his father inconvenience by earning or requiring it, but he may as well have been saying nothing at all, for the difference it made.

Eventually, despairing for ideas, realisation had dawned, gradually, like a slow thaw. 

The reason that nothing that he did made a difference, was because the deserving didn’t arise out of anything he did or didn’t do. It wasn’t because of something he was good at or bad at, something he knew or didn’t know, something he hadn’t thought to try or hadn’t been able to change thoroughly enough. 

It wasn’t something he was able to change at all. 

It was him.

The thought had been somehow crushing and freeing, all at once. 

If he deserved it because of who and what he was, and not because of anything he could work on or improve or change, then there was no alternative but to accept it, and control what he could. He couldn’t - _shouldn’t?_ \- stop it from happening, but he could fiercely guard whatever small scraps of pride he had left by refusing to give up a reaction. He wouldn’t cry or try to run, he wouldn’t beg or apologise and, if he could help it, he wouldn’t give up a single sound. His father didn’t seem to care either way – most of the time, he treated the whole thing more like a duty than a sport – but it made Monty feel a tiny bit better, a shade shy of completely worthless, to take it in silence, to appear unaffected.

And afterwards, when he didn’t think he had it in him to weather any more, when he desperately needed a few hours of sleep not wrought with anxious dread, he would come here. 

The clubhouse wasn’t a safe place – its walls were steeped with blackmail and peer pressure, dares and taunts, one-upmanship and leverage and misdeeds – but he couldn’t quite bring himself to tap at the edge of Chloe’s window frame, now that Bryce was courting her, despite that it had been a once common exchange between them, a weekly or sometimes nightly occurrence, depending on how much they needed each other at the time. The clubhouse was lonely and at night, on the deserted school grounds, felt offputtingly isolated, but it was sheltered and dry and quiet, and the couch was more comfortable to sleep on than the Jeep’s seats or his only other alternative, which he avoided as much as he could. 

Monty had counted upward of sixty stray threads in the couch upholstery when he heard footsteps outside. 

His eyes snapped open and he sat up, grimacing at the grab of pain that bit into his side. Watching the windows, he made out only one shadow silhouetted in the weak moonlight, and glanced around the small, untidy space for an excuse to be there, silent and alone in the dark, while the person outside hesitated at the door, reaching for the combination lock and finding it already removed. Swivelling to put his feet on the floor – there was no time to put his shoes back on, he had kicked them off on the other side of the coffee table – Monty snatched his phone from the arm of the couch and flicked open the screen, sliding into a casual slouch as the door swung hesitantly open. Monty raised a vaguely interested eyebrow, pressing down the anxious guilt at having been caught and the relief that it wasn’t Coach Rick or, worse, Bryce. 

“Hey, Scotty.” 

The other boy, standing awkwardly in the doorway with his bike supported by the handlebars in one hand and his backpack slung over the opposite shoulder, glanced around the empty space.

“Hey, Monty,” he responded, hesitantly. He glanced at the light switch inside the doorframe, but seemed uncertain about whether or not he should turn it on. He made an obvious effort to smooth the surprise and discomfort from his voice beneath a carefully modulated casual tone. “What’s up?”

Monty shook his head, as if there were nothing unusual at all about crossing paths in a dark, secret building on the edge of school property at a quarter past eleven on a Tuesday night. 

“Just hanging out,” he said, watching Scott’s gaze, adjusting to the dark, flick to his backpack and letterman jacket, stacked one on top of the other on the armchair. At that angle, Scott couldn’t see the folded towel underneath – his bag had been too full with a change of clothes for tomorrow to cram it inside, and Monty had learned experience that it was an unnecessary frustration, trying to dodge security guards and students arriving for early practice sessions if he had to detour to collect it from the Jeep on his way to use the gym showers in the morning. Monty pressed the lock key to power down his phone and sat forwards, redirecting the other boy’s attention with a curious look. “You?”

Scott bit the inside of his cheek and glanced around again, as if to be certain that no one else was hiding in the small, dark room, and then turned a look over his shoulder, like he was considering whether leaving without answering might be a better option than responding. After a moment, he shook his head and stepped into the room, wheeling the bike in after him far enough to close the door. With some familiarity, he guided the bike into the space between the shelves along the far wall and the chalk machine, propping it there, then slid his backpack from his shoulder.

“My dad’s being a fucking asshole,” he muttered as he unzipped the front pouch and dug inside. He tugged free a plastic bottle of pills, which he shook in one hand, rattling its contents. He cocked an eyebrow at Monty before tossing him the bottle, asking, “You read Russian?”

Monty caught the bottle one-handed and squinted at it in the dark, the letters stamped on the label all blocky and backwards. He shook his head, turning the bottle over in his hands. 

“Dude, half the time, I’m not even sure I can read English that well.”

Scott scoffed as he dumped his backpack beside Monty’s on the armchair, then turned to retrieve the bowl tucked into the back corner of a low shelf, the glass pipe lying inside rolling noisily against its edge. He crossed the room to flop onto the other end of the small couch, and with practiced hands, pinched the scant, spun weed in the bottom of the bowl between his thumb and forefinger, packing it into the pipe, while Monty watched him quietly.

“Apparently it’s some kind of miracle supplement. Russian Olympic team swear by it, or some shit.” Scott snorted, shaking his head, and reached for the cigarette lighter on the coffee table. He flicked it three times before the flame held, and drew the smoke from the pipe in a long, calming breath, holding it for three drawn-out beats before exhaling through his nose. Tucking the lighter against his palm, he began pinching another hit from the bowl. “Like that makes it safe, or OK?” His forehead creased in a frown, and he opened his mouth as if he would say more, but decided against it, putting the pipe to his lips instead.

Monty watched the flame reflect on the other boy’s blue eyes, and rubbed the pad of his thumb over the ridged cap of the bottle in his hands. Scott didn’t talk about his father much, but it wasn’t a difficult story to piece together, most of it available through yearbooks and local news websites and the stories his father would tell anyone who stood still long enough to listen. Scott’s father owned the bodybuilding and mixed martial arts gym in town, which had a reputation both for its strict training regimens, which turned out skilled fighters, and its steady trade of illegal steroids and growth supplements. In high school, Scott’s father had been a boxer and a wrestler, a star of both sports by all accounts, with a natural talent and a determination that would have seen him become a professional sportsman, if it hadn’t been for a career ending injury when he had been in his second year of college, and had slipped on the wet pavement beside the swimming pool at a frat party, breaking his wrist and dislocating his elbow. 

That was devastating, but not the end of the world, because his college sweetheart still loved him, and once they were married, they started pumping out kids. Two boys and then twin girls. And maybe Scott’s father’s dreams had been dashed in a moment of drunken carelessness, but he could still live them, even if not in person. Neither of the boys – Scott or his older brother, Aaron – were built for combat sports, both inheriting their mother’s quick, light frames, so they spent their childhoods in little athletics and basketball and tennis lessons, swimming and running track and eventually, Aaron had settled into lacrosse, and that had become the central pillar of the family. Everyone had a role to play in supporting Aaron, attending practices to cheer him, enthusiastically and sometimes aggressively, to victory, policing his diet and exercise, monitoring his academic performance to ensure that he would be allowed to play from one season to the next, expressing their disappointment in chorus with their father when, buckling under all of that pressure, Aaron started sneaking out and partying and was eventually charged with drunk driving in his senior year. 

To the surprise of no one other than his father, Aaron had accepted a scholarship offer to play for Ohio State University straight out of high school, moving to the other side of the country from where they had grown up in Oregon, and resisted visiting outside of Thanksgiving. He played well enough to maintain his scholarship, but he was far from the best on the team, and preferred to focus on his studies in architecture, playing only to maintain his enrolment. He refused to take his father’s calls until he stopped trying to contact him. 

That had been hard for their father to take as well, but also, not the end of the road. He still had Scott, who, from a young age, showed promise in little league baseball, and that had become the new dream, supported by nutritionist meal plans and exercise regimes designed to build speed and coordination, a tutor to keep his grades passable and strict policing of his friends and acquaintances to make sure that he only associated with students who would contribute to his success in the sport and not lead him down the wayward path that Aaron had taken before cutting them from his life entirely. After Liberty’s varsity baseball team had taken state in 2017, the Reed family had packed up and moved to Evergreen County, Scott’s father entirely unabashed about selling his son to Coach Rick as the perfect replacement for the tragically departed Jeff Atkins. 

Losing out on captaincy of the team to Bryce had been a blow – but even Scott’s father had to accept the unassailable nature of Bryce Walker in these things – and he worked on hedging his bets. Scott was allowed to play football in the baseball off-season to keep his fitness up, and he wasn’t the greatest player – not even second or third best on field, although he contributed well enough to the defensive squad – and it never hurt to have a back-up plan. Scott’s life was reduced to a tight schedule of practice, diet control, exercise plans, supplements and vitamins and pre-work out protein shakes, and crushing, unrelenting expectations. There was no time in the calendar for a weekend job or spending time with friends or – God forbid – a girlfriend; those were rewards earned by winners, and he had a long way to go to prove himself worthy of that. The only person that his father had allowed him any leeway in spending time with was Bryce, as if the other boy’s talent and fortune might somehow rub off on him. 

Most of the time, Monty got the impression that, outside of needing him as an extra set of hands on a work site or an outlet for his rage, his father didn’t spend a single moment thinking about him at all and, in a way, all of the endless hours that Scott’s father spent thinking about and devising opportunities to support his son’s path to success seemed like it might be sort of nice. On the other hand, the thought of spending any more time with his father than was absolutely necessary made him feel like vomiting. 

Scott himself seemed torn between trying his hardest to excel – because at the end of the day, his father wanted what was best for him, and he did enjoy baseball, and anyway, doing well was one way to get his dad off of his back for a little while – and rebelling against the stranglehold of control that his father’s attempts to vicariously achieve his dreams imposed on him. 

Scott dropped the pipe back into the bowl with a sharp _clink_ , and glanced across at the bottle of pills in Monty’s hand, the catalyst for the shouting match that had started at the dinner table, when his father had attempted to dismiss his hesitation to take pills he had no idea of the contents or effects of, and had continued for hours after, traversing through his lack of dedication to his exercise regimen - _I don’t care how many miles you ran at the beach this morning, your fitness plan says fifteen miles on the treadmill this evening, and anyway, what the hell are you helping that de la Cruz kid for? He’s already faster than you and I bet he’s benching more than you are, right? I’m right, aren’t I?!_ \- his slipping geometry grade - _what am I even paying a tutor for if you’re not going to try? You act like a god damn idiot sometimes, I swear!_ \- and had eventually landed on the same topic they always did, Aaron - _you’re heading exactly the same way as your brother, that ungrateful little shit!_ \- culminating in the bottle of pills being thrown across the kitchen before he had stormed into his bedroom and slammed the door behind him. 

Over an hour later, when the door had creaked open and Scott had refused to roll over on his mattress, expecting his father to be standing in the doorway, determined to have the last word, he had been surprised to hear his mother’s soft footsteps on the wood floor and, after she had left and gently closed the door behind her again, he had turned over to find the bottle of pills and a glass of water left suggestively on his bedside table. 

That was when he had packed his backpack with a change of clothes and snuck out the back door. 

“Fucking asshole,” he muttered, mostly to himself, the comfortable haze beginning to settle over his frayed nerves, soothing the raw, reluctant edges of vulnerability that he hated revealing. He didn’t expect the other boy to understand – Monty’s parents didn’t seem to give a shit if he was the absolute best or the utter worst at anything at all that he did – but the need for escape, that was a sentiment that they could both appreciate, and Monty offered him an unexpected token of vulnerability in return. Straightening to place the bottle of pills on the coffee table, he lifted the hem of his t-shirt, revealing a pattern of bruising welts that mottled his left side, his expression entirely calm and blank. 

“My dad’s a fucking asshole, too.”

Scott looked sidelong at the other boy’s injuries and, unsure what to say, offered him the bowl instead. 

Over the following months, they crossed paths at the clubhouse a handful of times, each knowing that, if they arrived in the dark to find the lock already removed, that they weren’t alone in their need to be somewhere safer than home. They didn’t talk about it any other time, not even when it was just the two of them, running along the wet sand at the edge of the shoreline in the early morning sun. Most of the time, even when they were at the clubhouse, they didn’t talk about what had driven them there, smoking or drinking or both, until they settled for a few hours of sleep, one on the couch and the other slumped in the armchair. He never acknowledged it, not out loud, but Monty slept better at the clubhouse when he wasn’t alone. 

It made him think, sometimes, of that night when Justin had curled up on the floor of his bedroom, snoring softly with his blanket knotted around him, and Monty had lay awake wondering what in the fuck he was thinking, there was no possibility this could end any other way but bad, and when he had finally dropped off to sleep, it had been sound and deep, the other boy’s presence nearby shifting from a hinderance to a comfort as his subconscious slipped into dreams. 

One Thursday night, an hour or so after Monty had arrived to find Scott with his feet propped up on the back of the couch, playing a block puzzle game on his phone, and after each of them had worked their way through a beer and a half, they had fallen silent in the middle of a light-hearted argument about the correct ranking of the _Fast and Furious_ franchise movies, scuffling and giggling outside surprising them both a moment before the door swung open.

“The fuck are you two doing?” Bryce asked.

A suspicious, lopsided smile lingered at the corner or his mouth as he narrowed his eyes at the beers on the coffee table, his arm slung around Chloe’s shoulders where he stood propped in the doorway. She looked down at the pair of backpacks dumped against the side of the couch and glanced at Monty, biting the inside of her cheek, but he kept his gaze on Bryce, his casual grip on a can of beer masking the anxious churn in his gut as Bryce looked between them. 

“Just hanging out,” Scott offered casually, pointing to the bowl on the table. “You want some? Ramon’s cousin’s shit is better than that leafy mess your guy sells.”

The two boys glanced at each other and chuckled, even as irritation tightened in Bryce’s expression. 

“Yeah, well, my lady and I are looking for some quiet time-“ he raised a cocky eyebrow, smirking as he slid his hand from Chloe’s shoulder to her waist, squeezing her small frame to his side. She smiled, cheeks glowing pink as her hair fell across her face. Bryce looked at each of the boys directly. “-so take your fucking _primo bud_ down to the docks or something, huh?”

Scott hesitated, and looked like he might apologise or ask to stay, when Monty got up from the arm chair. 

“C’mon, Scotty,” he said, pausing to drain the last mouthful from his beer before discarding the can carelessly on the coffee table, not bothering to right it when it tipped and rolled against the edge of the bowl. “I got more beer in the Jeep.”

Scott still looked uncertain, but had no option other than to follow, as Monty lifted his own backpack onto his shoulder and grasped Scott’s by the straps in his other hand. If Bryce had anything to say about the backpacks, or the glance that he followed as Scott stood to put his shoes back on and looked toward his bike, propped against the shelf on the far wall, he held it, choosing instead of make a loud, insistent show of kissing Chloe’s neck. He stumbled when she nudged him backwards to make enough room for the two boys to pass them through the doorway, and offered them a self-satisfied grin when he took pause from sucking Chloe’s throat to bruising long enough to swing the door closed behind them.

Scott accepted his backpack from Monty, and followed him wordlessly to the parking lot at the edge of the football field where, despite the empty expanse of parking spaces, Bryce had parked the Range Rover directly alongside the Jeep. Monty felt a small sting of apprehension that Bryce had known that he had been on school grounds before he had happened upon them in the clubhouse, all startled smiles and probing questions, as he dumped his bag behind the driver’s seat. It didn’t have to mean anything. 

“Dude, I can’t go home,” Scott insisted, frowning at Monty from the open passenger door. “The second I walk in that door my dad’s gonna fucking chain me to the cross-trainer for missing cardio with him this afternoon.”

Monty shook his head, starting the engine.

“I got you, man,” he said. “We’re not going home.”

The old building was less a structure than a few stubbornly standing walls, colourful with graffiti, and the hint of what had once been a roof, just enough to provide some shelter from the wind off of the river and a little extra protection when it rained. Monty had happened upon it not long after he had bought the Jeep, driving around late at night, the back of his hand pressed to his nose to stem the bleeding and cursing Bryce half-heartedly for ignoring his texts. Back then, he had just propped himself in a corner on a couple of old pallets, drank a few beers to pass the time until the sun started to rise and he could go and clean himself up in the locker rooms at school before anyone else arrived. Over time, it had become a fail-safe, the last place that he could go when he had literally nowhere and no one else, when he had _deserved it_ , and what he had deserved was more than he could stand having to explain to Bryce or to Scott, if he happened to show up at the clubhouse, when it would take a few days before he could move without wincing, before he could go to school without Chloe looking at him like she wanted to slap him for not coming to her and cry because they both knew why he didn’t. 

“What is this place?” Scott asked, peering through the windscreen as Monty pulled the Jeep to a stop on the dirt road, nothing around them for miles except scrubland and the distant lights of warehouses by the docks, the abandoned cement structure looming, dark and skeletal, in the Wrangler’s headlights.

Monty shrugged, killing the engine and reaching for his backpack. He tucked the keys inside and took out his phone, thumbing the menu and flicking on the torchlight. 

“I call it the _hobo hotel_.”

Scott followed him quietly, aiming the torchlight from his own phone as he peered around at the spray-painted art on the walls, the discarded wooden pallets stacked in careless piles with plastic crates, determined weeds growing up between cracks in the concrete. In the more sheltered part of the old building, where the roof was still mostly intact, a blue pop up tent was anchored, and Monty crossed to it with familiarity, dumping his backpack on the old folding chair outside.

“I’ve only got one sleeping bag,” he said, bending to zip open the entrance. “But it’s a two man tent.”

Scott aimed the light from his phone inside where, sure enough, a single polyester sleeping bag was rolled and strapped neatly, stacked on top of a couple of cheap pillows. Monty ducked inside to reach for the sleeping bag and, placing his phone on top of his backpack so that the torchlight aimed up at the partially burned out roof overhead, unstrapped it and unwound the zip, shaking it loose. He shrugged when he noticed Scott watching him.

“I haven’t been out here in a while,” he explained briefly. “And I don’t like snakes.”

Scott was quiet for a long while, watching while Monty returned to the Jeep for a six pack of warm beer, his stomach twisting tightly when the other boy set an open, half-drunk can to one side to crouch at the entrance of the tent, spreading the unzipped sleeping bag over the weather-proof flooring to add an extra layer between them and the cement, and the hem of his shirt rode up as he reached to the far corner, revealing a pair of bruising welts wrapped from his hip across the base of his back, uniform in thickness and straight-edged, the exact width of a leather belt. When Monty was finished, they crawled inside, the tent surprisingly hardy against the cool evening air, and Scott lay back with his head on one of the pillows, the can of beer resting on his chest as he ran his fingers distractedly around the sharp edge of the open spout, not quite hard enough to cut the skin but close enough to risk it. When Monty’s phone chimed, Scott glanced over, and they were close enough in the small tent that he made out Chloe’s name at the top of the push notification before Monty thumbed the screen to lock-mode and set it aside.

“You know,” Scott said, the first time he had spoken almost since they had arrived, and Monty looked down at him from where he was sitting, his elbows on his knees and a can of beer dangling from one hand. “Sometimes, I think that I’d rather step in front of a fucking train than spend one more day living with my dad.” Monty’s forehead creased in a frown, but he didn’t say anything, waiting for Scott to finish. The other boy hesitated, pressing the tip of his finger hard against the sharp edge of the aluminium. “But your dad-“ he bit off whatever he had been intending to say, or maybe he hadn’t planned to say anything further, and Monty didn’t look away, simply blinking and waiting. Scott shook his head. “I’m sorry, man.”

Monty looked down at the beer can in his hand and shrugged.

There was no need to apologise for something that the other boy in no way contributed to; something that he deserved. 

“It’s not anyone else’s fault,” he said, and Scott looked at him, but didn’t seem to know how to respond. Eventually, he asked,

“Does Bryce know about this place?”

Frowning, Monty shook his head.

“Nah, man,” he said, and looked back at the other boy. “I don’t mind you coming here, if you need to. But you won’t tell him, right?”

Scott nodded his agreement, and meant it.

“No, dude. Never.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I was a little hesitant to post this until I had at least one chapter in advance drafted, and I haven't achieved that - the next chapter, which will be about the four kids from Nora Walker's perspective (my goodness, she made season 3 for me!) is only about 2/3 done... but this one has been written for a while and I felt bad leaving it too long between updates. 
> 
> It's a long weekend in Australia this weekend, so I'm hoping to get through the first draft of Nora's chapter in the next couple of days. After that, we're back to Justy, and I'm going to try my hand at a scene that looks at him receiving Hannah's tapes, his interactions with Tony through the process, and how he decides to pass Hannah's story on to Jess. 
> 
> Thank you to beekitties and Filisa and Comfortwriter28 - your feedback keeps this fic alive :)
> 
> I hope this is a little easier to stomach than the last, Bryce-focused chapter. 
> 
> Thanks as always for reading and commenting <3


	6. Nora

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first of four sections told from the perspective of the gang's parents.

The first time Bryce brought Montgomery de la Cruz home, Nora’s first thought was _not another one_.

Bryce had been a habitual adopter of strays since he was a boy. 

When he was very small, and lonely, Nora or the maids could expect to find any manner of small creatures tucked into his pockets or secreted into a box or jar in his bedroom. Insects, mice, lizards, once a small bird that had fallen from its mothers’ nest. They didn’t always survive – sometimes crushed accidentally by a too tight grip or suffocated by an enclosure so secure that he forgot to poke air holes, unintended victims of her son’s desperate need for affection and companionship.

Barry had wanted more children after Bryce had been born, but she had resisted, even as she watched her husband become increasingly distant to her, indifferent to her inability to connect with the child they already had, shrugging coldly when Marisa approached the breakfast table quietly and whispered in her ear, hesitantly raising the corner of a carefully wrapped tissue to show her the skink, limp and dead, that she had found emptying the pockets of Bryce’s trousers before running a load of laundry, only a year or so after Bryce had learned to walk. Nora had looked to Barry, despairing – how could they explain to a little boy that loving something didn’t involve entrapment or force or control, when she wasn’t even sure she loved him at all, despite that she desperately wanted to? He had waved her off, telling the housekeeper to throw the dead animal in the trash, and going back to his newspaper.

Bryce had struggled to form connections with other children, even when he was very small, and Nora couldn’t help but feel responsible for that, watching him at playgroups trying desperately to win and then hold on to the attention of his peers. The expression on his face was that same mix of need and confusion that had become familiar as she had struggled with herself in those first few years, physically battled against the urge to roll his stroller into a park, engage the wheel lock, and walk away, tried and failed to force herself to smile at him when he reached for her, stretching his small hands upwards, asking to be carried, and even though she knew she should want to, she just couldn’t do it, her arms remaining locked by her sides, her expression indifferent while her thoughts churned. 

_I should want this, but I don’t. I should love you, but I can’t_. 

Barry insisted it would pass, even when it didn’t, even when she begged for his blessing to see a therapist before she did something terrible. One day, she had been in a café and had gotten up from the table to pay for her green tea, and when she turned back to where Bryce was sleeping in his stroller, dreaming serenely, it felt entirely natural to walk to the exit without him. The barista called out to her, and they had both made an awkward effort to laugh about her lack of sleep as she reluctantly returned to retrieve the stroller. Eventually, Barry agreed to anonymous telephone counselling – he wouldn’t support anything that his colleagues and clients might find out about – and while it had helped to know that there was a name for what she was feeling and what she couldn’t feel, and it was a relief to be reassured that it was a diagnosable condition, she never stopped feeling alone or inadequate. 

In an attempt to fill a void that she couldn’t, Nora became Bryce’s advocate for a series of pets as he grew up. They gave him the typical speeches about responsibility and looking after these animals that depended on him, all of which he would agree to with an enthusiastic grin. He had started out with a goldfish, which had floated, overfed and dull eyed, to the surface of the tank within a week. The Siamese fighting fish, after that, had been interesting only as long as it attempted to attack its own reflection in the glass sides of its bowl, and had be relegated entirely to the care of the house staff after another child had brought a pet mouse in to class for show and tell, and the fish was suddenly entirely uninteresting due solely to its inability to be paraded for his peers. Barry refused to agree to a mouse or a rat or a hamster, and Bryce reluctantly picked out a crazy crab with a Rastafarian hat painted on its shell from the pet shop’s selection, nodding glumly when Nora reminded him that he could take it to school for show and tell. Two weeks later, Bryce had done just that, and when he had returned home after school with the portable plastic tank and no crab, he had offered only a shrug when Nora had asked what had happened to the creature. 

After that, she had sided with Barry, and had refused any further needling for a ferret, a turtle, a snake or a cat. 

Bryce had eventually moved on to an actual dog, when he was seven and a half, begging Barry to let him take home a flea-ridden, bony old mutt that he saw sleeping on a piece of rotting cardboard behind a café in town. He had made such a nuisance of himself over it that eventually Barry had caved – he had paid to sponsor the dog’s boarding at a no-kill shelter, and they hadn’t told Bryce when the animal passed away four weeks later of complications from heartworm. As far as he knew, that dog lived forever, or at least until he forgot about it. 

Then there had been the Foley boy. Bryce had been eight and transparent, then. What he had wanted was a friend, of sorts – a loyal companion who adored him unquestioningly, who he could feed and shelter and care for and love, who he could teach commands and rely upon for company and protection. That boy, grubby and untidily dressed with scuffed shoes and a too-small t-shirt and hair that needed cutting, had gazed around at the expanse of each room the first time Bryce had brought him home, and that had been all it had taken. 

Bryce had his pet.

~

While Monty rarely strayed from the category of ‘kids parents warned their children to stay away from’, often enough based on his own behaviour and demeanour but sometimes simply as a result of his proximity to the unpredictable violence of his father; Justin, despite his undeniably sketchy living situation and questionable background, managed to circumnavigate the opinions of adults with care and practice. He was the sort of boy who looked like trouble, with his undeniably bright and mischievous grin, his collection of dubiously tasteful tattoos and his tendency to pepper casual conversation with curse words without seeming to realise that most people didn’t consider them appropriate for polite company. But he was also capable of humility and manners that were undeniably endearing, never more so than when the boys had been small.

Ever since Bryce had taken Justin to his side in the third grade, Nora had grown used to his almost constant presence. Barry found it an occasional nuisance, lamenting that Bryce couldn’t seem to find interest in friendships with children from families in their own neighbourhood, but it was low on his list of complaints, most of the time, and Nora would rather weather his criticisms of her as a wife and a mother, generally expressed through deliberately silent disapproval, than allow him to shake the first sturdy friendship Bryce had ever established. And Justin was hardly a difficult child to have around. He was easily pleased and impressed – it rarely took more than a meal and a kind word to brighten his face with a smile – and the house staff adored him, especially Marisa, who beamed when Justin would pause between shovelling huge mouthfuls of the breakfast she had prepared for him into his mouth to ask her to tell him more stories about growing up on her grandparent’s farm in Guatemala. 

At first, it had simply been a coincidence of his constant presence that Justin often accompanied them on shopping trips to purchase school supplies, new shoes and backpacks, sometimes even back-to-school haircuts, and it seemed unfair to exclude him from those activities, even though Nora wondered whether she should check with his mother if she minded him coming home with new belongings. Justin never seemed concerned – only excited, more excited than she had ever seen a child over the prospect of pencils and exercise books – but she did often wonder what his mother thought, whether it was an unintended insult to her pride or ability as a parent to provide for her son. 

If she objected, she never raised it with Nora. In fact, the one and only time Nora had ever seen Amber Foley was from afar, a dark-haired woman with a thin, birdlike frame, smoking a cigarette at the bottom of the stairs of a grubby apartment building where they pulled up to the curb to collect Justin to play laser tag for Bryce’s twelfth birthday. She hadn’t even smiled or waved as he ran to the car and climbed into the back seat, and Nora wondered if her lack of warmth in that moment was because of all of the well-intentioned things that they provided Justin that she could not.

In the end, though, it made Justin happy to be included, and like most others, Nora was helpless to deny that smile.

Perhaps a year after the boys had become friends, the annual Scholastic book fair has been set up in the library at their elementary school. Bryce was, at best, vaguely interested – he browsed with the other pupils, if only to remind them that his parents could afford to purchase him any book he lay his hand on – but had no genuine passion for reading. It disappointed Nora. She had grown up an avid reader and of all of the things that she felt she had failed to instil in him, a passion for reading and knowledge was one of them. Bryce wasn’t one of those wilfully stupid children, who wore their ignorance like a badge of honour, but he did take a certain amount of pride in knowing exactly as much as he wanted or felt he needed to, which saddened her. 

After stopping in to return some books that Bryce had borrowed for a presentation about ancient Egypt and then neglected to bother returning until the library had mailed a warning letter that failure to return school property would result in replacement fees – earning little more than a careless shrug from Barry, which was mirrored by his son – Nora had wandered over to the book fair display with a pang of nostalgia. The fairs had been different – although, admittedly, marginally – when she was a student, but still held a certain magic, infused with memories of spending hours late into the night flipping through the pages of books under the covers of her bed while her parents drank and argued downstairs. 

Running her fingertips over the brightly coloured covers, she had been surprised to spot Justin lingering at a nearby table, thumbing the corners to peek at the pages of the books on display.

“See anything you like the look of?”

Justin spun like he had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, yanking away from the books as if he might convince her he had never touched them. He relaxed, very slightly, when he recognised her.

“Hi, Mrs Walker,” he mumbled, glancing at the display. “I was just looking,” he insisted. 

Nora had to wonder from his reaction whether she was the first person to startle him as he browsed, and whether the last person had approached him with more suspicion at his interest than encouragement. 

“You know, they had book fairs just like this when I was a girl,” Nora offered, shifting her gaze to the books as she wandered closer to see what had captured his interest, even as Justin shoved his hands into his pockets and averted his eyes. “I used to love picking out new books to read.” She smiled gently, although he avoided looking at her, and indicated toward the books he had been looking at. “Have you read any of these ones?”

Justin shook his head, keeping his head down so that his hair – desperately in need of a trim, again - almost covered his eyes. Nora barely caught the shift of his eyelashes as he slid a sideways glance at the colourful cover art of a copy of _Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone_. 

“Mom says books are a waste of money,” he muttered, his tone conflicted. “She says you can just watch stories on TV.”

Nora shrugged. 

“I suppose that’s true enough,” she offered, always careful not to disparage the sometimes-harmful opinions that Justin parroted from home, and the boy glanced up at her through his hair, his cheeks tinged pink underneath a smear of dirt from the playground and a hesitant smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. He watched her reach for the _Harry Potter_ volume. “I guess I always liked coming up with my own version of what the stories would look like if they were real,” she said, running her fingertips over the edge of the book, then reaching to touch the hand drawn art on the cover of a _Pippy Longstocking_ story. “You know, I used to wear my hair in braids like this when I was your age, to be just like Pippy?”

Justin grinned.

“No way.”

Nora nodded seriously.

“I did,” she insisted, unable to smother a smile in response to the boy’s obvious amusement. He started to ask a question, but was cut off by the bell signalling that students should make their way to their next class. Suddenly embarrassed again, the boy twisted his hands in his pockets and shrugged. “Bye, Mrs Walker.”

“Bye, Justin.”

Nora waited until he had left the library before asking the library clerk for an order form. 

“You are so embarrassing,” Bryce announced three weeks later as he climbed into the back seat of the SUV at the school pick up zone. Nora looked at him in the rear-view mirror, relieved that the dark tint of her oversized designer sunglasses obscured the sting of hurt that she couldn’t quite keep from tightening around her eyes, as she watched him avoid meeting her gaze, the way Barry would when he wanted to leave her stewing in her own pain after sharing whatever criticism had occurred to him at the time. 

“What do you mean?” Nora had asked, eventually, as she pulled out of the collection zone and joined the queue to merge into traffic. Bryce rolled his eyes at her in the back seat. 

“All those books you bought Justin?” he suggested sarcastically, as if it should be obvious. “They delivered the book fair orders today, and he just about wet himself and then bawled like a stupid baby.” He scoffed, reaching into his backpack for the cell phone that Barry had bought him, despite that Nora had protested that he was too young to need one. “He could barely even lift them all in his backpack.” He finally raised his eyes to her, casting a dismissive glance at her over his phone. “You know they’ll probably get stolen when he’s on the bus home? Or his mom will just sell them for crack.”

Before the conscious thought to do it had even formed, Nora reached back and snatched the phone from his hands. Bryce yelped and began to protest, grasping after her even as she leaned over to snap open the glove compartment and shoved the phone inside.

“Mom!”

“Stop!” Nora cut him off before he could lament the unfairness of her treatment. “That’s a horrible thing to say about your friend.” She cast a furious look at him in the rear-view mirror. “You are better than a spoiled brat, Bryce Edward Walker. You can have your phone back when you can act like you deserve it.”

Bryce folded his arms sulkily in the back seat.

“I’m gonna tell dad,” he muttered as they pulled out into traffic.

“No, _I’ll_ tell him,” Nora answered, satisfied with the surprised look that widened Bryce’s eyes. She continued, her tone suggesting more confidence than she felt that Barry would actually back her up when she raised the issue with him. “I don’t feel like I should have to remind you that your father expects you to behave like a Walker, Bryce. Walker men are-“

“ _Gentlemen_ ,” Bryce echoed sourly, but he raised no further protest. 

And when they arrived home it was to a message, relayed via Marisa, that Barry had flown to Washington for a few days of business meetings, so Nora had held on to the phone until the day before he was due home, when Bryce sheepishly admitted that he had told his dad over the phone about the confiscation, and had been instructed to apologise. Apparently, the admission was intended to also serve as the apology, and Nora had accepted it, returning his phone. 

When Barry arrived home the next day, he had waited until Bryce had left the dining table to address her.

“Don’t take his phone again,” he instructed, his tone flat and his gaze on his whisky glass, which he swirled casually in his hand. Nora had paused, halfway standing to clear their plates, and he had met her gaze with flat, dispassionate disapproval. 

“What if there was an accident, or an emergency?” he suggested, quiet but sharp edged. “What sort of mother would that make you?”

~

By the time that the de la Cruz boy came into the picture, Bryce was different. Five years later, and his pet was still serving its purpose – he had no use for another like Justin. This one wasn’t for teaching tricks and sharing comfort and parading around to his peers, who were easily smitten with Justin’s dimpled smile and effortless charm. She could see it in this boy – the apprehension and anger tight in his shoulders the first time Bryce invited him to the house and he had looked around with a frown, like it was an affront that anyone should have access to such comfort. The way his hands curled naturally into fists, like he felt most comfortable that way. This one was not another of Bryce’s pets. This was one to be caged and tormented into fury, to be baited with weaker targets, to seethe and strain against his own destructive rage until given command, by her son. 

Justin was Bryce’s pet. Monty, his attack dog.

She had held some hope that Bryce wasn’t drawn only to other children that he could manipulate, his advantages of wealth and influence and privilege over them obvious, even to a young boy. That same day that she had watched Monty glaring around the foyer, discomfort and anger drawing his posture tight, a dark bruise mottling his cheek and a beat-up skateboard hanging from one hand, Bryce had also invited Zach Dempsey – a kind and polite boy with an overbearing mother who accepted Nora’s invitation to come in when she delivered Zach and then didn’t leave for hours, her well of town gossip deep and insatiable as Nora refilled their cups with green tea for the third time and resigned herself to the realisation that she was not going to have time to attend to any of the errands she had planned to run that day. 

Zach was the type of boy that Barry wished Bryce would make friends with – someone who couldn’t quite match him but whose family was at least in the same orbit of prosperity and privilege – but Nora saw the standoffishness between them. Bryce had always struggled to relate to children of similar circumstance to himself. Like his father and his grandfather, he tended naturally toward jealousy and protectiveness, and was so used to having access to wealth far in excess of his peers that anyone within spitting distance of the same level of affluence felt like an affront. Zach was too nice, too humble, too handsome and athletic and personable and _likeable_ for Bryce to feel anything but thinly veiled disdain for him. Nora wasn’t sure that Zach could see it, but she did. Bryce looked at Zach the way Barry looked at her. 

There were others. Boys from Bryce’s sports teams and classes, girls from athletics and the cheerleading squad and study groups. 

But none of them orbited her son so closely, were so inextricably entwined with him, as Justin or Monty. 

And Bryce was hyper-aware of it; protected it, even. Triangles could be strong shapes, but Bryce held the three of them at perpetually uneven angles, perched at the top with the two boys below him jockeying for the position closer to him in all things, even inconsequential, mundane activities that shouldn’t have mattered to anyone at all. Who sat next to him at the breakfast bar, because Bryce always took the stool at the end of the benchtop to make sure it could only be one of them. Who was invited to sleep over or ride with him to school. Who received his cast-off belongings – electronics and sports equipment and the like – when he replaced it or inevitably grew bored of it. Every decision and interaction was an opportunity to remind them of where they stood, until it didn’t even seem like a conscious effort on Bryce’s part anymore, so practiced that it shifted beyond even habit to simply the way of things between them. 

While Bryce guarded his friendship – ownership? Sometimes it was difficult to understand exactly how he perceived their relationship – of Justin jealously, willing to damage what he couldn’t control, destroy what he couldn’t have, to break Justin in order to ensure that the other boy would never bond with anyone the way he did with Bryce – his connection with Monty appeared to operate, in some ways, in the opposite direction. Bryce treated it carelessly, flippant at best toward the possibility of pushing him too far, and despite that the other boy seemed to be perpetually toeing the edge of having taken as much as he could, he never tipped over it – or if he did, he didn’t let her son see, and he always came back. Monty was a child accustomed to weathering what he must and fighting to protect what little he had. Nora thought that, not unlike the way Bryce seemed capable of destroying Justin as the only acceptable alternative to having his devotion all to himself, Monty would do whatever it took, hurt whoever he had to, including Bryce, to maintain the twisted relationship that they had.

Bryce didn’t seem to realise what the inequality he had cultivated in their friendship had bred into the other boy, and that he treated him with such casual cruelty frightened Nora – not only because he was capable of it in the first place; he always had been, he was Barry’s son, after all – but because he didn’t seem to recognise the risk inherent in doing it. He didn’t seem to notice as the other boy became aware of the viciously short correction chain that Bryce had placed around his throat, or that, over time, Monty had learned to grip that chain with both hands, not only to stop it from closing too tight around his windpipe when Bryce yanked it to punish him for a misstep or simply remind him of his place, but to drag him back should Bryce ever try to let go. She feared that one day, the attack dog that her son had so deliberately trained would turn on him, and remember every single torment when he did.

In some ways, truly, Bryce would deserve it. 

~

In keeping with her general feelings toward the boy, Nora’s strongest memory of Monty was a conflicted one. 

It had been late on a chilly autumn night, rain spattering sporadically against the windows, carried by a harsh and inconsistent wind which rattled the French doors that opened out from the kitchen to the pool area outside, where the eerie glow of the pool lighting flickered beneath the choppy surface of the water. Barry had been away in Dubrovnik for three or four nights by that time, and Nora had woken in the huge, cold bed to a headache gnawing at her temple. She navigated the dark house with a sliver of unease – being home alone without Barry always made her feel slightly unsettled, despite that his presence could scarcely be described as comforting - and the weather battering the windows didn’t alleviate her disquiet. She poured herself a glass of water from the filtration jug in the fridge and took two aspirin.

After rinsing the glass and setting it on the sink, she was startled to turn back toward the bedroom just as Monty stepped out of the darkness of the hallway directly across the open living space. The boy had hesitated there, looking around with some confusion, then turned back in the direction he had come, without seeming to notice her at all. Nora hadn’t realised Bryce had any friends staying the night – it had been just to two of them at dinner, Bryce flicking through the fantasy football app on his phone the entire meal – and Monty almost never ventured into the house since that first time Bryce had invited him over nearly eighteen months before, preferring to head straight to the pool house and avoid interacting with her or the house-staff who, despite their friendliness, seemed to make him even more uncomfortable than Nora did.

Watching him pause at the end of the hallway, considering the closed doors on the right and the left, Nora realised that he must be lost looking for the bathroom in the dark, and padded over to him, her bare feet silent on the hardwood floor.

Hoping not to startle the boy by approaching him unexpectedly from behind, Nora reached to place a gentle hand between his shoulder blades.

“The bathroom is just th-“

Nora felt Monty go rigid beneath her light touch, and she flinched away instinctively, alarm flooding through her as the boy, barely fifteen but carrying at least thirty pounds of weight advantage over her, spun toward her and, less than halfway through the rotation, jack-knifed at the waist and vomited all over himself.

Residual fright hammering at breakneck speed inside her chest, Nora stood stunned for a moment, watching the boy look down at himself as if he couldn’t understand what had happened, vomit spattered over his sweatpants and the hardwood floor at his bare feet. His hands were shaking and, for the first time since she had met him, he appeared only as what he was – not a dangerous animal disguised as a child, barely under the control of her son and entirely capable of hurting him as soon as he realised that he could no longer tolerate being hurt himself – but just a boy, face pale beneath the freckles on his cheeks and a tremble in his breath as he glanced sidelong at her. His shoulders tucked down defensively and he ducked his head, a protective posture Nora had never encountered in a child before Bryce had brought Justin into their lives. 

“I’ll clean it up,” he said, and Nora felt stung by the thin thread of pleading apology in the quietly spoken words.

“It’s alright. You clean yourself up,” she said gently, pointing to the door to his left. “That one is the bathroom.”

Monty hesitated, but the opportunity to put distance between them seemed to win out. 

Once the bathroom door had clicked closed behind him, Nora retrieved a bucket from the butler’s pantry behind the kitchen and filled it with warm soapy water. It had been some time since she had had to clean up after an ill child. When he had been small, taking care of Bryce when he was unwell had been one of the few occasions where she didn’t feel completely useless as a parent – where it didn’t matter if she couldn’t quite seem to generate a maternal love that felt authentic, because she could do those practical things that needed to be done; she could bring him medicine and change his bedsheets and help to peel off his sodden pyjamas after he vomited all over his bedroom and simply stood in the middle of the room afterwards, exhausted and crying, small and helpless. In those moments of fever or pain, Bryce needed her comfort, truly wanted her care, and it wasn’t the same thing as love, that still felt locked away somewhere she couldn’t access, but in those early years, they were the times when Nora felt most connected to her son. 

These days, any sickness was usually related to excessive alcohol consumption, and Bryce was practiced enough to deal with any evidence before she came across it. 

Crouching in the dark hallway, the sound of running water muffled behind the bathroom door, Nora realised that there was no smell of alcohol – either that she had noticed on the boy when they had stood within feet of each other moments before, or from the mess she cleaned from the hardwood. Not drunk, then. There was no evidence of food that she could identify, either, and while she wasn’t surprised that her son had been inhospitable enough not to offer his friend anything to eat – Bryce could be fickle about being a perfect host or a deliberately terrible one - that ruled out food poisoning or some sort of intolerance, as well. Monty hadn’t seemed distressed or unwell when she had spotted him; lost and confused, perhaps, but unhurried. 

Wiping the hardwood dry with a handful of kitchen towel, Nora thought of the way the boy had recoiled from her touch. He hadn’t bristled threateningly, the way she had seen him do when Bryce or their other friends made unwelcome contact. He was a tactile kid – not quite so much as Bryce, but close – although he seemed far more comfortable touching others than being touched, and Bryce knew it, of course, treating the triggering of those involuntary responses like a game. Even Monty’s defensive reactions were frequently aggressive, his repertoire of human interaction comprised almost entirely of fight responses. This boy, in the hallway, was different. His reaction had been immediate, instinctive and intense, and attuned so acutely that it had taken only a light press of her hand between his shoulder blades to send it into overdrive. 

It was wrong, in ways that she couldn’t quite piece together, and it unsettled her. 

When Monty stepped sheepishly from the bathroom, ten minutes later, Nora was waiting for him in the kitchen, the overhead lights of the rangehood casting a gentle glow over the spotless stone benchtops. He hesitated at the end of the hallway in boxer briefs and a t-shirt, his sweatpants bundled up in one hand. Nora smiled gently.

“Come and drink this,” she said, offering a glass of violently pink-tinged water, the electrolyte tablet she had dropped into the bottom almost fully dissolved into a fizz of tiny bubbles that coated the inside of the glass. “You’ll feel better.”

Reluctantly, slowly, Monty crossed the living space and slid onto one of the stools on the opposite side of the bench. In the dim glow of the rangehood lights, Nora thought his colour looked better, his cheeks less pale and warming to an embarrassed shade of pink as he accepted the glass. While Justin normally paired his humility with a bright, disarming smile, Monty’s shame almost always presented in lockstep with anger, as if he were resentful for having been made to feel that way, or perhaps simply furious at himself for being unable to deny the instinctive reaction. As he took a wary sip of the bright liquid, the bridge of his nose wrinkling at the unexpectedly salty aftertaste, Nora considered offering to launder his sweatpants, but the way that he tucked the damp garment protectively in his lap, underneath the edge of the benchtop, gave her pause. Instead, after watching the boy steel his resolve and commit to drinking the entire glass in three gulps, she offered a small smile.

“Better?”

Discomfort drew his shoulders tight beneath his t-shirt, and he placed the glass carefully on the stone benchtop, avoiding the question by murmuring, without looking at her.

“Thank you.”

Inexplicably anxious, Nora scarcely slept after she watched the boy return to Bryce’s room, shifting beneath the covers in the huge, empty bed until sunlight began to creep around the edges of the curtains and she realised that, sometime in the pre-dawn hours, while her thoughts had twisted restlessly over one another in a way they normally did only when she thought of Bryce, her headache had dissipated. Accepting that she would not find the quiet of sleep, she slipped out of her pyjamas and changed into a pair of burgundy yoga coordinates before retrieving the mat that she kept rolled up behind the door of the walk-in robe. 

On her way to the sunroom in hope that she might catch a bit of watery Autumn sunshine as she moved through a morning flow routine, Nora paused at Bryce’s bedroom, peering around the edge of the door left ajar. She expected to see the fold-out cot from the storage cupboard beneath the stairs assembled at the foot of the bed – Justin’s usual sleeping place when he spent the night and the boys didn’t sequester themselves to the pool-house like some sort of fort – but instead found both boys sleeping quietly on the California King mattress. Bryce was sprawled, as he normally did in a deep sleep, limbs akimbo beneath the covers and his face buried in an untidy stack of three of more pillows, one socked foot dangling off the side of the bed and a Liberty sweatshirt pulled on as a mismatched top to his plaid pyjama pants. Monty lay on top of the covers on the corner of the bed not claimed by Bryce’s sprawl, coiled in a tight curl on his side with his back to her, one arm folded and tucked beneath his head. The curtains had been left partially open, and the boy’s backpack and shoes were dumped against the wall directly below the window, which explained, at least, why she hadn’t heard him come in the night before. 

The two boys slept soundly, and although it should have been an endearing moment of quiet support between brothers, watching the two of them together, dread trickled through her. There was no affection, despite their close positioning; only undiluted, destructive, unequal co-dependence. Bryce took up space thoughtlessly, as he normally did, the idea of being entitled to any less than exactly what he felt like never occurring to him, while Monty, with familiar practicality, made do with what little he had access to, his position on the mattress undeniably akin to a pet sleeping at the foot of its master’s bed. It troubled her. Because as much as Barry’s careless, absent, ‘boys will be boys’ approach to fathering had contributed to it; the way that Bryce was, the way that he treated others, it was her fault. 

When Bryce found Monty, Nora had thought, secretly and worriedly, _fire meet gasoline_. 

Given enough time and opportunity, one of them would destroy the other.

~

Even more frightening to her than his attachments to Justin or Monty, was Bryce’s relationship with Chloe Rice. 

Like a lot of things as he grew older and asserted his independence from them, Bryce had attempted to hide his relationship with Chloe from her and Barry for some time. The first time that Nora became aware that Chloe was more than a pretty blonde cheerleader who sometimes appeared at the gatherings and parties that Bryce threw for his friends was when she had glimpsed them from the kitchen window, pressed up against the glass door of the pool house, Bryce thrusting between her thighs. Nora had told herself that that was not the type of introduction to the family that Chloe would have wanted, and tried not to hold it against the girl, suggesting casually at breakfast the following day that Bryce should invite her to dinner. The atmosphere in the house had been tense for some weeks at that point. Bryce’s court date looming in the near future was wearing on all of them, despite that Barry insisted that there was nothing to be concerned about. Bryce had been surprised by the offhanded proposal, stumbling to agree, even as Barry shot him a sideways look, unimpressed that this was the first time that he was learning about a girlfriend, likely due to the fact that the lawyers hadn’t had an opportunity to brief her about the list of approved behaviours to bolster their public image in the shadow of the trial. 

Normally, one of the very rare topics that Barry took the time to speak to his son on was women. He seemed proud and amused by Bryce’s popularity amongst his female classmates, chuckling as Bryce described the lengths that some girls were willing to go to in order to catch the eye of the captain of the football and baseball teams. In those moments, Barry looked to her as he had when he and Nora had met in college, full of self-assurance and pride. And although it worried her that, in those exchanges, Barry treated Bryce more like a friend than a son, offering no advice or guidance, even when Bryce’s self-confessed behaviour skirted from inappropriate to reprehensible, the two of them connected on so few things that Nora couldn’t quite bring herself to intervene. Barry would have dismissed any advice she offered, anyway. All he had for her, by then, was contempt and tolerance until he found a younger, more beautiful woman to uphold his public image. 

For a time, Bryce had attempted to court Sheri Holland, one of the girls from the Liberty cheerleading squad. Sheri was bright and sweet, with a warm smile and a genuine care for others that often drew her and Justin together to laugh over a bowl of chips out by the pool or show one another a joke on one of their phones, to Bryce’s frustration. He didn’t let that stop him, though – he was a Walker, and if Walkers didn’t get what they wanted, they didn’t simply give up. He attempted to woo her with expensive dates and dinners, but Sheri often politely declined any invitation that didn’t involve getting together as a group. He invited her as his plus one to benefits and dances that his family attended or sponsored, but didn’t have any success that way either. Sheri’s parents were going through a break-up, and this only seemed to deepen Bryce’s confusion at her resistance – _why wouldn’t she want to get dressed up and be paraded around on his arm, even if only as a distraction from her splintering home life? Surely that was preferable to listening to her parents scream at each other over who would get the settee or the silverware or primary custody?_ Instead, Sheri tended to seek out quiet moments with Justin when they were all together at the house, exchanging gentle words and supportive smiles. 

Eventually, spitefully, Bryce had given up, if only to ensure that the decision to relinquish any chance of a relationship would be his and not hers. 

“What ever happened to that girl, Sheri?” Barry had asked one Sunday while the house staff moved around them, clearing the breakfast plates from the dining table. 

Bryce had scoffed, brash, but Nora thought it an obvious attempt to disguise his hesitation to admit defeat to his father. 

“I’m done with her,” he had said, dismissively. “She’s nothing but a tease.”

Barry cocked an eyebrow that suggested both amusement and approval. 

“Good for you, son. It’s important to recognise your own worth.”

 _Yes_ Nora thought, as Bryce smiled crookedly at the tiny scrap of praise. _As Sheri clearly did._

She could only hope that Chloe would come to the same understanding, and before the damage was too great. She was incredibly clever, although she tried to hide it, and she perhaps lacked some of Sheri’s common sense, or at least her instinct for identifying the risk that orbiting too close to Bryce represented. Either that, or she had tamped it down, smothering any hesitation for reasons Nora couldn’t be sure of. She was sweet, but she didn’t have the instinctive charm that drew people to Justin, that created connections without him trying, without him even realising, so that, even if he didn’t quite see it yet, he had support networks that spanned far beyond Bryce. She was tough, but she wasn’t armoured like Monty, more like an artillery tank than a child sometimes in his ability to weather mistreatment, stronger than most people gave him credit for, more than he even understood himself, so that as she watched Bryce carelessly, deliberately steer himself and the other boy into collisions over and over again, she became sure that her son would be the one to break first.

She hoped that, before that happened, he wouldn’t have the opportunity to break Chloe. 

~

Normally Marisa ran errands such as visiting the post office and dropping off the dry cleaning and collecting prescriptions from the pharmacy, but while she was away visiting family in Guatemala for two weeks, Nora took up these tasks. She waited patiently in the queue at the pharmacy counter at the Walplex early on a Thursday evening, focusing on maintaining a calm expression despite that she could feel the eyes on her, taking in her expensive coat and diamond earrings, as if she were both unwelcome and to be awed, both of which made her uncomfortable enough to require focus in order to keep from anxiously scratching at her nail beds, the way she had done to deal with stress as a child, until her fingers bled while her parents fought bitterly in the next room. 

Nora almost didn’t recognise Chloe when she spotted her ducking behind the dispensary counter, dressed in a pale green and white Walplex uniform, her blonde hair combed into a neat tail of curls. The girl smiled, friendly and familiar, at the assistants collecting and announcing prescriptions, as she ducked into a doorway to pluck up the phone mounted on the wall. With carefully shaped nails painted a pretty shade of nude pink, she tapped a cell phone number and waited two beats, smiling her relief when the call was answered.

“Hey. Where are you right now? I need a favour.”

There was a comfortable affection in her voice, and Nora wondered if she was speaking to Bryce. 

“Can you ditch them? Doug needs me to work till ten. Brittany didn’t show for her shift. Again,” Chloe rolled her eyes for the benefit of the dispensary assistants, who shook their head in disapproval at their unreliable colleague. “I’m meant to be babysitting Amelia. Mom doesn’t get home till after nine. Could you pick her up from ballet and take her home? She finishes at four thirty but they’ll let her stay until the older class finishes at five.”

Nora found the idea of Bryce babysitting equally endearing and unsettling. He could be good with younger children – he was comfortable playing the fun goofball to make them laugh and it was one of the few circumstances where he was able to let go of his fiercely protected pride temporarily, enough to show them how to play games or sports, and let them win. At the same time, Bryce’s interactions with anyone, even a small child, were rarely more than surface level, and he was so adept at masking his true intent that grown, otherwise intelligent and self-aware adults found themselves drawn helplessly into the honeytrap of his manipulative charm; a child wouldn’t stand a chance. 

Chloe’s teeth sank into her lower lip as she broke into a grin.

“Lifesaver,” she breathed, unwrapping the telephone cord that she had unconsciously tangled into loops around her hand. “She doesn’t have a house key, but I can meet you out front in fifteen minutes and give you mine.”

Nora watched Chloe end the call and hang up the handset. She paused to collect a pen that one of the dispensary assistants had dropped, handing it back to her with a smile, which flickered anxiously when she spotted the next customer in line, a slight Hispanic woman wearing a housekeeping uniform, her dark hair looped into a tidy bun at the nape of her neck and a weariness about her that drew her small shoulders down and shadowed her eyes. 

“Hi, Mrs D,” Chloe said politely, waiting for a small smile and nod from the woman before moving quickly away toward the registers. 

While they waited, Nora found herself surreptitiously studying the woman, her small, tough hands with a simple, narrow gold wedding band worn on the left, her neatly ironed uniform, the lines that fanned from the corners of her eyes and the sprinkle of freckles dotted across the bridge of her nose. 

The pharmacist picked up the next script and called from the dispensary, “de la Cruz.”

Nora watched the woman step forward to collect and pay for her items. She was smaller than Nora might have guessed, but then, mothers of hardened sons often were. Reconsidering her housekeeping uniform, she realised that it was no wonder Monty was visibly uncomfortable in their home, no surprise that he preferred to avoid their house staff, his jaw tightening when Bryce referred to Marisa’s cooking as “some kind of amazing Mexican shit” or left his dirty dishes on the kitchen bench less than a foot from the sink. Bryce’s carelessness toward inconveniencing others had always made Justin uncomfortable, even when they were small, but it seemed a particular insult to Monty, and now she understood why. 

Nora wondered if Bryce knew that Monty’s mother worked as a housekeeper.

She thought it was almost certain he did.

As the woman turned to leave, Nora reached to touch her elbow politely.

“Excuse me-“

The woman spun on her, startled, her dark eyes bright with alarm.

“I’m so sorry,” Nora smiled. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop. But I overheard the pharmacist call your name and I wonder if Montgomery is your son?”

Far from settling her nerves, the woman’s apprehension seemed to grow exponentially, the colour draining from her cheeks.

“What has he done?”

It was Nora’s turn to be startled. She smiled, shaking her head, an attempt to conceal her surprise at the instinctive reaction. On one level, she could understand the woman’s question. Sometimes, it was the first thought that burst across her mind when someone mentioned Bryce, although she was generally able to press it back before it spilled from her lips. 

“Oh no, I don’t mean-“ she chuckled, hoping that it came across as polite confusion and not the discomfort she actually felt. “He’s a friend of my son, Bryce Walker.” Nora watched as the woman looked at her pearl necklace, her diamond wedding band, and her manicure, in quick succession, before her gaze flicked back to Nora’s face. “He stayed at our house the other night, and he was ill. I just wondered if he was feeling better?”

The woman frowned at her, and Nora realised that she more than likely didn’t know that her son had been unwell, or maybe, as she suspected, he hadn’t been unwell at all, and his reaction to her touch had been something else, something she was frightened to consider more deeply. Probably his mother hadn’t even realised Monty hadn’t slept in his own bed that evening, had no idea that he had climbed through Bryce’s bedroom window and spent the night curled up on his bedcovers. Carefully, in a manner that exactly replicated her son’s ability to compartmentalise his discomfort and tuck it away in some hidden place, the woman schooled her features and offered a marginally polite, reserved smile.

“He’s fine,” she said, and inclined her head graciously. “Thank you.”

Nora watched the woman walk away, distracted by the uncomfortable exchange, and only realised the pharmacist was calling ‘Walker’ when she felt the gaze of the other customers sliding in her direction, silently judging her inattention and delay. 

Outside by her car, feeling slightly frayed, Nora searched for her keys in her handbag and glanced up when she heard Chloe squeal a few yards away. 

“Oh my god! You are the shit, I swear!”

Nora expected to see Bryce’s black Range Rover, his satisfied, lopsided smile at the open driver’s window, but Chloe stood at the side of an almost equally familiar Jeep Wrangler, one hand wrapped around a tall, plastic cup of milky boba tea, the other reaching for the straw that Monty offered her through the window. Immediately, she stabbed it through the thin plastic seal and took a long gulp.

“I would offer to marry you, but my heart honestly belongs to this fucking tea,” she groaned, fluttering her eyelids closed. Monty smiled, shaking his head, as she dug into the pocket of her uniform trousers and produced a ring of keys and a few crumpled bills. “Did you get one for Amelia? Let me give you some money.”

“Nah,” Monty reached through the window and plucked the keys from her hand, leaving the cash. “It’s tactical. Keeps Amelia from talking my ear off the whole drive home.”

Nora watched Chloe laugh, her comfort and affection clear in her easy smile. She rested one hand on the window frame of the Jeep, her other wrapped around the tea. 

“There’s poached chicken and steamed greens in the fridge for dinner, you can just microwave it.”

Monty grimaced, shaking his head as he reached to turn the keys in the ignition.

“Mac and cheese it is.”

Chloe cocked an amused eyebrow and stepped away from the car.

“You give Amelia dairy and carbs and you know Mom’ll kill you.”

Monty winked at her as he put the car into gear.

“I hope she does. She’ll make a quicker job of it than choking to death on dry, unseasoned chicken.” 

As she drove home, although it felt a juvenile thing to consider, Nora wondered if Chloe and Monty were seeing each other behind Bryce’s back. Certainly, on the occasions that they had both been at the house, nothing in their behaviour had suggested that they were anything more than classmates, two students who knew one another in passing by virtue of attending the same high school. Clearly, they were far more to one another than that, for Chloe to know his mother by sight and well enough to feel compelled to offer a polite greeting, for the two of them to banter playfully and comfortably, for Chloe to call on the boy to take care of her sister before anyone else, before any of her friends from the cheerleading squad or her boyfriend, a boy who most others treated with the caution of a hand grenade and would probably never even occur to them to consider entrusting with the care of a child. 

Though the closeness between them was undeniable, and the fact that they hid it in Bryce’s presence curious, Nora decided that they didn’t behave like a couple, even when it was just the two of them and they were unaware that they were being observed. She wondered how they had come to be that way with one another. She didn’t know Chloe very well, hadn’t even been properly introduced to her at that stage, but she had never seen Monty so unguarded. 

Nora realised she was glad that Monty and Chloe had one another – had someone other than Bryce. She glanced at herself in the rear-view mirror and shook her head. 

Barry was right. She was a terrible mother. 

~

As Bryce matured, and she and Barry drifted further apart, and her father’s illness worsened and he lost the redeeming qualities that twinkled sparsely in her childhood memories, boiled down to frustration with his broken-down body and contempt for everyone around him, Nora felt a sort of affection grow for her son. It was difficult to determine the shape and nature of it, so slowly it had grown, like a wildflower forcing its way from a pavement crack, and it wasn’t quite lovely, but it was something she had never been able to feel for Bryce, not even through all of those years when she had desperately wanted to. And as much as she wanted to shower it with sunshine, to encourage it to grow, to hold on to hope that she could still have a relationship with her son that was something like a parent and not simply an adult who happened to live in the same house and share some genetic code with him, as that unconscious connection had grown, so too had her awareness of what her son had grown into, and it terrified her.

Bryce was capable of being sweet and polite and generous. As he grew older, he was constantly surrounded by friends and admirers, all eager to bask in the warmth of his attention and privilege. For a time, Nora wanted to believe that, despite her failings as a mother and Barry’s disinterest in engaging as a father, Bryce had flourished into a young man that was essentially good. 

But that wasn’t true. 

Beneath that thin veneer, that perfectly painted mask developed through years of practice and imitation, was where her son truly existed. The exterior was so carefully cultivated that she could barely identify where the parts had come from, although occasionally she would spot a hint of a pout that reminded her of Justin’s puppy dog eyes, an aggressive protectiveness in his posture that belonged to Monty, a confident smile that hid his ruthless intent almost as well as his father was able to. But beneath that, behind the Walker name and the gleam in his blue eyes and the humble boy-next-door persona he shrugged into like a coat, there was something else – something wrong. An inability to connect, a lack of empathy for others, a gaping hole where his ability to care about consequences arising out of his actions for anyone other than himself should have been. His emotional range was broken, remorse and sympathy and love all empty and missing, allowing entitlement and desire to grow unwieldly in the vacated space, so that nothing felt like it shouldn’t be his if he wanted it – captaincy of sports teams, popularity at school, money, drugs, other children, girls, especially. 

And the hardest part of it was, beneath the shallow layer of humanity, and below the detached lack of empathy that ran deeply underneath, there was a small part of her son that _wanted_ to be good. That wanted to be kind and trustworthy, that wanted desperately to be able to connect with others the way that the people around him did. 

And it broke her heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Considering how long it took me to write, and how much I struggled with it, this one ended up longer than any of the other sections so far.
> 
> As mentioned above, this one is the first of four sections looking at the four main characters from the perspective of one of their parents. I absolutely loved Nora's character in S3, so of course she had to be first (next up will be Amber, although we have a few sections to get through before we get there)
> 
> A little, in-passing mention for Sheri here, who I really missed in S3, inspired by the fact that some jerk (Imma go with Bryce!) put her on the Hot or Not List as Worst Tease, ugh! Also, I little bit of Barry Walker (blegh!) and a tiny little glimpse of Monty's mother.
> 
> Thank you so much to comfortwriter28 for your beta review, feedback and chats!
> 
> Thanks as always for reading and commenting x


	7. That Damned Smile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Justin's reaction to receiving the tapes.

Justin should have been accustomed to the way that his subconscious would string together his worst memories and fears into a lullaby horror show by now. It had been that way for as long as he could remember, for as long as he had been old enough to form and retain memories. Still, every time he found himself trapped, neither welcome in that nightmare place nor allowed to leave, forced by no one other than himself to endure, until he felt as though he was rocking in place, curled into a protective ball inside the confines of his own head, and waking felt like a harsh, cold splash of water in his face.

The nightmares stuck with him as he brushed his teeth at the grubby sink in the tiny apartment bathroom, the mouldy tiled floor a minefield of damp towels, Seth and his mother’s discarded clothing, empty condom wrappers and tampon packaging. Watching himself in the dirty mirror, Justin scrubbed his teeth vigorously, scraping the bristles roughly over his teeth, tongue and gums, and tried to force away the lingering cling of sleep.

Waking up to the impenetrable, black heat of an out of control fire started by one of the other troubled children housed in the group home where he had been sent after the last in a long line of overdoses, his mother’s carelessness leading to her being discovered by neighbours, sprawled unresponsive in the hallway, who called an ambulance, the police, and CPS. Choking, his eyes streaming, and darkness everywhere, so thick that it felt as if it were staining his skin, seeping down his throat, and panic had crushed his chest in the moments before someone had shoved him down into a crouch and dragged him, crawling and spluttering beneath the smoke, from the building. 

Tearing himself apart, shredding himself as he paced the hallway outside of Jess’s bedroom door, loyalty looped around his throat like a noose, love crushing his heart like a vice, guilt blooming in his chest until it felt as if he would burst, his internal organs smashed against his ribs and the bones straining. He tried to convince himself - Bryce would listen to him, he would have to. Stopping him wasn’t just the right thing to do for Jess, it was the right thing to do for _Bryce_ , who would surely regret this in the clear light of sobriety the next day, and forever after. The shove that felt like being knocked over by a wrecking ball. The sneer that cut him to his core. The click of the lock trapping him with his own helpless despair as he sank into drunkenness and long buried trauma. 

A dark, hellish reinterpretation of when he had been three or four, and his mother had moved them into a women’s shelter for a few weeks after her dealer-slash-boyfriend – depending on what she was using him for at any given time - realised she was stealing from him and kicked them out, but not before teaching her a lesson first. Her face still bruised greenish-yellow, she had hidden him under the blankets of the cot they shared when another woman’s husband had forced his way into the shelter one night, and had broken the nose and eye socket of two volunteer workers before dragging his wife, terrified into silence, from the building by her hair. The police arrived a few hours later. His mother had moved them in with another practical stranger by the following day. As it turned out, the stranger had been more interested in Justin than Amber.

“Hey, baby.”

His mother was high – or maybe just in one of her manic moods - they could be difficult to differentiate. Both came with bursts of frantic energy trimmed with edginess, and today was no different. Her work shirt, although crumpled, was enthusiastically tucked in and her vest buttoned tidily, her name badge pinned precisely straight on the right. Ducking under his elbow, she reached for her hairbrush, tossed into the sink last time she had thought to try to tame her unruly tresses, and began combing her hair into a painstakingly neat ponytail. Often, Justin found these moods harder to take than her low points, the grinding of her teeth, the tremble in her hands, the tiny vibrations of energy that seemed to burst all over her - they made him anxious, and although he liked to see her happy, there was an artificial aftertaste to it that made him feel nauseous being around her, knowing that just around the corner, its looming presence certain but the grace period until it arrived frustratingly unpredictable, was the shrieking, sobbing desperation, or sometimes unnervingly silent and impassive lows. None of the options on that pinwheel of emotion were enjoyable, but some were more manageable than others. The manic highs were not amongst them. 

Justin spit his mouthful of toothpaste into the sink, leaned down to swill lukewarm, coppery water directly from the tap, and dropped his toothbrush into the chipped pink ceramic mug abandoned on the cistern that they used as a holder.

His mother called after him as he slipped out of the room.

“There’s a package for you, on the counter.”

Justin ducked into his bedroom to collect his varsity jacket from the end of his unmade bed and sling his backpack over his shoulder, then headed to the kitchen. Sure enough, a rectangular shaped box wrapped in brown paper sat on the counter on top of a stack of pamphlets, bills, catalogues and other miscellaneous junk mail that his mother had apparently swept from their mailbox in a fit of enthusiasm, normally content to let it fill to overflowing, if only to avoid looking at the envelopes stamped ‘past due’ for another day. Curious, Justin eyed the handwriting. It looked vaguely familiar – a girl’s bubbly penmanship, neat and uniform – but he couldn’t place where it might have come from. He turned the box on one end. It wasn’t his birthday – not even nearly – and while he and Jessica were getting close, closer than he had ever felt to a girl before, in a way that both frightened and thrilled him, he couldn’t think of a reason why she would send him a package in the mail.

Justin tucked a finger beneath the tape securing the brown paper at one end of the box, and tore a corner open. Underneath, the box was aqua blue and black, a floral pattern with a solid black lid. He thought it looked like a shoe box. 

“There’s some spic pretty boy asking for you downstairs.”

Justin was startled by Seth’s voice from the entryway, but tried to suppress the instinctive flinch, refusing to give up even whatever sliver of satisfaction his mother’s boyfriend might have gotten from it. Seth, dressed in dirty jeans and a stained wifebeater that displayed the twin iron cross tattoos on his chest – a relic from an early stint in federal prison on an assault charge, where he had aligned himself with the white supremacist faction in the yard rather than risk trying to make it on his own – glanced at the package in Justin’s hands and sneered at the floral design visible beneath the paper wrapping.

“Faggot.”

Clenching his jaw, Justin stuffed the package into his backpack and abandoned any thought of searching the kitchen for breakfast in favour of leaving. Seth didn’t move an inch to let him pass, and as Justin swivelled to squeeze through the gap, making an effort to avoid contact, he couldn’t help but mutter bitterly beneath his breath.

“Fuck you.”

Seth’s hand shot out and grasped his elbow, shoving him back against the wall.

“Fuck you say to me?” he asked, pressing close enough that Justin could smell the stale cigarette smoke on his breath and his unwashed hair. 

“Nothing,” Justin bit out, hating every bit of apology that leaked into his voice, despite that he tried to choke it back. Seth wasn’t the scariest guy his mother had ever brought home – there had been plenty that frightened Justin more – but his temper was volatile and his moods could be vindictive. He seemed to enjoy torment and threats at least as much as actual violence, and a lot of the time, that was worse. Justin could take a punch if he had to, he would find somewhere to lick his wounds and recover. The constant, lingering threat of the blow was what ate at him. And when it was paired with his mother’s sharp-edged mania and the dread of its inevitable end, the apartment began to feel like an airless, nauseating prison. 

“You boys are playing nice out there, right?” Amber’s voice floated from the bathroom, where she wound her hair tightly around her unsteady hand, coiling it into a precise bun.

Seth lingered there for a moment, until they were both satisfied that his point had been made, then stepped back and shoved Justin toward the front door. 

Angrily – gratefully – Justin slipped out of the apartment and resisted the urge to slam the door behind him. It wasn’t worth having to run down the steep staircase with Seth on his heels, not in front of whoever was waiting for him downstairs. _Some spic pretty boy_ , Seth had said. The only person Justin could think of who fit that description was Monty – as much as Monty would hate to be referred to as a pretty boy, despite that ‘pretty’ was precisely the right word to describe the other boy’s face, a pretty mask for a dangerous predator. But, while Justin occasionally caught a ride to school with Monty, he only ever showed up if asked, never on a whim or out of some spontaneous kindness that occurred to him unprompted. 

Swinging his backpack beneath his arm to zip it closed over the package, Justin glanced up and hesitated. 

Tony Padilla, dressed in his standard uniform of combat boots, leather jacket and perfectly arranged hair, leaned against his cherry red Mustang, parked against the curb. 

Justin knew Tony from around the hallways at Liberty High, but had very little interaction with the older boy. They didn’t share classes or friends, they didn’t frequent the same parties and he didn’t think he had ever seen Tony at a basketball game. Aside from crossing paths a handful of times at school dances, afternoon detention and summer school, and despite living in the same neighbourhood, Justin had nothing at all to do with Tony.

And now, he was standing outside his apartment building under an overcast sky full of heavy gunmetal clouds, apparently waiting for Justin, wearing a complicated expression full of pain and guilt and rage. 

“Um, hey?” Justin ventured, wandering close enough to speak but not within arm’s reach. Tony’s arms were folded across his chest, but he had seen the other boy throw a punch in a hallway brawl once – he didn’t want to risk having his nose broken or his teeth knocked down his throat, if he could avoid it. “You looking for me?”

Tony just watch him for a moment, and it was unsettling, his hazel eyes sweeping over Justin’s casual, if slightly uncomfortable posture, assessing. Finally, he met Justin’s gaze.

“You haven’t heard?”

The question was blunt and thrown like a hand grenade, so that Justin couldn’t be certain that there was a right answer. Either he hadn’t heard - _whatever the hell he was supposed to have heard_ \- and the idea made the other boy angry. Or, he had heard _whatever_ , and his reaction to having heard it, or lack thereof, made Tony even angrier. Confused, Justin hesitated, and as he glanced around for possible escape routes as a backup plan in case whatever words came out of his mouth next were the wrong ones and he had to make a hasty getaway, he noticed the box sitting on the roof of the Mustang by Tony’s shoulder.

“Oh, hey, you got one, too.”

Tony frowned, his anger giving way – begrudgingly, marginally – to a puzzled expression. He glanced back at the box, an aqua blue and black floral-patterned women’s shoebox, and then back to Justin, who unzipped his backpack and lifted out the still mostly wrapped package, the identical pattern visible beneath the torn paper. Tony blinked, considering, opened his mouth but paused, and when he eventually spoke, it seemed to be something other than what he had originally intended to say.

“You should try Sal’s over on the corner of Fifth and Maybrook,” Tony suggested, pushing away from the Mustang and turning to open the driver’s door. Justin watched him tuck the box into one hand, climb into the car, and close the door behind him. Tony didn’t turn his head as he addressed him through the open window. “They have a decent vintage audio section.”

The Mustang roared as Tony reached forward and turned the keys in the ignition.

“Wait, what?” Justin called over the sound of the engine, confusion sending all of his thoughts and questions careening into one another like bumper cars. He brandished the package. “Tony? What the hell is this?”

Without another word, Tony gunned the engine and peeled away down the street.

Watching the brake lights glow as the Mustang slowed to take the corner at the end of the block, Justin shook his head. Determinedly, he grasped the loose, torn ends of the brown paper wrapping and ripped it free, letting it fall to the pavement with the other discarded trash that collected in the drains and against the curb. Beneath the lid, which he tucked under his arm, there was piece of paper, folded into thirds like a pamphlet. Justin turned it over without opening it. It looked like a standard tourist’s map of Evergreen County, the kind that they gave out for free at the visitor’s centre in town, with no further information or explanatory note. Frowning, he tucked the map into his jacket pocket to consider the remaining contents of the box, tugging free the loosely packed bubble-wrap that protected whatever was enclosed inside. 

Cassette tapes.

Seven tapes, lined up neatly in the box. 

Justin picked out one at random. There was a white cardboard slip inside the clear plastic case, and the spine of each was decorated with colourful, hand drawn patterns of swirls and squiggles and stars, but there was nothing written on it to describe its contents. The tape underneath was painted with a neat number ‘9’, royal blue, in thick paint marker, or maybe fingernail varnish. 

What the fuck was he meant to do with these?

As Justin looked down the street to the corner where the Mustang had disappeared, a fine mist of rain began to fall, lightly dusting the cassette tape in his hand.

“Fuck,” he cursed, tucking it back inside the box and hastily shoving the bubble wrap back into place before replacing the lid and shoving the box into his backpack. Tugging up the hood of his sweater, Justin zipped up his backpack and headed for the bus stop, muttering to himself as the rain picked up and he increased his pace to a trot.

“Thanks for the fucking ride, Padilla.”

When he arrived at Liberty, what he hadn’t heard – what he should have heard – was immediately, devastatingly obvious.

Hannah Baker was dead. 

~

Despite that every survival instinct in him told him to run, to get off school grounds, to find somewhere to hide and never leave, Justin schooled his expression into what he hoped was a convincing impression of calm, pretended that the package in his backpack did not feel as though it weighed a thousand pounds - because why in the fuck else would it have shown up today if it didn’t have something to do with all of this? - and went about his day. He could feel sadness settling over the school grounds like a shroud, for some genuine, for others surface level – closer to shock that someone they were acquainted with had ceased to exist than a genuine grief – and for a select few, there was something more complex than that, shock, anger, guilt, accusation. How could she do this? And how could he show his face here, after what he had done to her?

Jess skipped, and although Justin was worried about her - she and Hannah had been friends after all – he was relieved to receive her text before first period letting him know. 

He could already feel the eyes on him. He didn’t want that for her, too. 

“Shit’s fucked up,” Bryce commented lightly at lunch, while Zach stared blankly at his untouched lunch tray and Monty popped slices of an apple into his mouth, flicking through his phone as if the quiet murmuring that had replaced the usual raucous chatter of the cafeteria had escaped his notice. Justin, sitting across from Monty and trying to force down his sandwich, battling against the nauseas churn in his stomach, glanced at Bryce as he choked down another mouthful.

“Yeah, man,” he muttered. “Totally.”

By the end of the day, Courtney Crimson had set up a memorial at Hannah’s locker, and students had pinned up pictures and cards and photos, laid flowers on the floor below it. Justin didn’t even realise Courtney had been friends with Hannah, and he hurried past on his way out after last period, avoiding eye contact with the small group of girls standing nearby, speaking quietly and weeping. 

On the bus home, Justin rested his head against the grimy window and watched the damp streets pass by. He knew that he should go and check on Jess – that’s what a good boyfriend would have done – but it had taken all of his resolve to decline Bryce’s invitation to hang out at the pool house, where he could have drank and smoked until the guilt leaking into his joints and burning like battery acid, seeping between the synapses in his mind and corroding his common sense was diluted to a manageable level. Because this was worse than the survivor’s guilt they had all felt when Jeff Atkins had been killed, worse than those _what if’s_ that scrolled through the mind of everyone who had been at the party that night – what if I had left the party at the same time? What if I had gone with him? What if I had gone on a beer run instead of him? What if it wasn’t him, anyone but him, me?

This was worse, because Justin didn’t share the what if’s with anyone else. Not this time. No one else was wondering – what if I had have set the record straight? What if I had never taken that photo? What if I had defended Hannah, explained what really happened, quashed those rumours, reached out to her publicly, instead of in secret like a coward? 

What if I’m the reason she cut her wrists and bled herself to death?

The bus’s brakes squealed as it rolled to a stop at a red light, and Justin glanced at the signs marking the intersection.

Fifth and Maybrook.

Outside the window, a red neon sign for _Sal’s Pawnshop and Jewellery_ glowed behind a security grill. The sign hanging in the door read ‘open’.

Before he the conscious thought to do so had even formed, Justin climbed from his seat and pressed the button to ring the bell for the next stop.

~

That first night was the hardest.

Hearing Hannah’s voice for the first time, on a banged up old Walkman that had cost him twelve dollars, bartered down from the twenty-five dollar asking price on the tag, Justin had staggered in the middle of the footpath outside of the pawnbrokers, reaching out a hand to steady himself on the security grill in the window. 

_Hey, it’s Hannah. Hannah Baker._

Casual, as if she were leaving a voicemail, as if he might turn around and see her standing there, smiling to herself, amused by the joke she had pulled on them all. 

It got worse, after that. 

A lot worse. 

Justin sat at the base of the rocket slide in Eisenhower Park, his jeans damp from the light rain that had coated and chilled the playground equipment, long after the tape marked ‘1’ in blue nail varnish had ended and the ‘play’ button had popped up as the cassette ran out, leaving him in heavy silence. The headphones were old and far from noise-cancelling, but Justin was so deeply buried in his own thoughts that he didn’t notice the Mustang until Tony crossed through the beams of its headlights to stand by the swing set.

“This is really happening, isn’t it?” Justin asked, and his voice sounded foreign to his own ears, flat and distant, even as he slipped the headphones from his ears to rest around his neck and the ambient sounds of the early evening returned around him, cicadas in the trees that edged the park, a frog somewhere in the damp underbrush, far away traffic. “She’s really dead?”

Tony nodded, his jaw clenching and pain tightening around his eyes.

“She’s really dead,” he echoed, with finality. 

Justin hadn’t doubted it – by the afternoon, it had been reported on local news websites, tributes were already posted in shop front windows in town, the old flowers and ribbons that had been put out for Jeff refreshed for Hannah - but somehow, having someone say it felt like a punch to the gut.

“I didn’t do what she said I did,” Justin felt suddenly compelled to insist, despite Tony’s stony expression, his unrelenting stare. “I didn’t send that photo around. Bryce took my phone, and I tried to stop him, and then after he did it, what the fuck could I do?” 

He could hear the desperation creeping into his own voice and hated it, despised that he couldn’t just own what he hadn’t done, because that was the choice he had made that had hurt Hannah – it wasn’t the things he _had_ done. Not the kiss or the photo or avoiding her afterwards, at least in public; it was that he hadn’t done the right thing afterwards, not by her. He had been the start of the end. Justin and his damned smile.

“I don’t think that matters anymore,” Tony said, his tone calm but a scant disguise for the emotions battling underneath it – anger, shock, guilt. “What’s done is done, and now it’s Hannah’s turn to tell her story the way she saw it. I think we owe it to her to listen.” He raised an eyebrow at Justin. “Right?”

Justin looked down at the Walkman in his hands. Jess said that he was a good listener, and mostly, he figured that was just because he had learned to tune out half of everything that was being said while she swung between gossip and chatter about clothes and cheerleading and reality television shows, paying only enough attention to nod along and identify when she asked him a question that he was expected to respond to. He suspected she did the same thing when he got on a roll about basketball or drinking with the guys on the weekend, and liked to think that he was slightly better than she was at masking her disengaged expression. There was nothing particularly difficult about listening to Jess – her voice had a vibrancy to it, an engaging musicality, so that it didn’t really matter what she said, Justin found that he enjoyed the sound of her speaking as much as anything.

Listening to Hannah dictate her suicide note, fashioning it into weapons the she wielded against him, was one of the most painful things he had ever had to do.

Frowning, Justin looked up at Tony.

“Are you on these, too?” he asked bluntly, frustrated when Tony gave up exactly zero reaction. “Is that why you got a box as well? She said the tapes have to be passed along to everyone, right? Everyone who made her…”

Justin trailed off, finding himself unable to articulate a suitable end to the question without stomach acid rushing into the back of his throat. 

Tony stepped away from the swing set.

“All you need to worry about right now-” he said, pointing to the Walkman in Justin’s lap. “-is listening.”

Justin bit back the urge to shout profanities after the other boy as he headed back to his car. How could a person be reasonably expected to deal with this? To learn that someone he had known, someone who had been kind to him, who had almost been a friend, for a time, had taken her own life? And then this, the torture of having to hear that girl, that sort-of friend, explain in her own words, in her own voice, that he had been the tipping point that had sent her into that dark place? That a small decision to protect his own pride and reputation instead of sacrificing both for that of someone else had set that person on the path to their death?

What in the fuck was he supposed to do with that knowledge?

“And what happens if I don’t?” he called at the other boy, throwing his hands up when Tony turned to look at him, his hand on the driver’s door of the Mustang. “What happens if I just throw these in the nearest dumpster, huh?” he nudged the box of tapes, sitting in the mulch at his feet beside his open backpack, with the toe of his sneaker. “Just say ‘fuck it’ and move on with my life?”

Tony paused for a frustratingly long time, considering, and then cocked his head.

“You’re not going to do that.”

Clenching his jaw, Justin watched the other boy drive away.

Fuck him. Fuck him for being right. 

Desperate to dilute his own guilt, Justin punched the eject button, turned the tape over, and shoved it back inside. He was only one of thirteen reasons, according to the numbers painted on the tapes. Surely, a kiss and an up-skirt photo had to be a minor infraction compared to what others had done to her, a small contribution to that massive, irreversible decision Hannah had made to end her own life. Surely, what the others had done to her was worse, and would make him feel better.

The next tape started, and Justin’s stomach dropped.

Reason two did not make him feel better.

Reason two was Jess. 

~

And it only got worse. 

Far from bracing him against his own guilt, Hannah’s accusations against Jess only made the complicated storm of feelings brawling low in his gut more uncontrollable. He felt that she had lied – embellished? Overstated? – what he had done, but he was willing to accept it as Hannah’s perspective of the truth. What she had said about Jess, laying total responsibility for the demise of their friendship at her feet, claiming that Jess had been the one to stop visiting Monet’s when Jess had told him, unprompted and with hurt bright in her eyes as they sat on the end of the pier and shared a bag of popcorn left over from seeing a movie at the Crestmont that afternoon, that Hannah had eventually stopped showing up and that she had never understood why. It made him angry, the amount of weight she pinned on that silly slap, the one-sided view she took of how the end of their friendship had affected her, with no regard for how the rejection had felt to Jess, how she had felt judged for daring to join the cheerleading team, for making friends other than Hannah, for participating in and enjoying her life. None of it felt fair.

The next tape doused some of the anger as guilt came rushing back in. 

That stupid, juvenile hot or not list, that they had laughed over in the cafeteria as Bryce got them started, transferring a conversation that had started in the locker rooms and morphed into an unofficial rating system, boys exchanging names and rankings in the hallways, to a handwritten master list. He had written the dubious titles available for award – best lips, worst legs, best face, worst tits – and scrawled a few names. Justin had felt bad for Sheri, watching Bryce write her name under ‘worst tease’, because it was bullshit, retaliation for Sheri’s resistance to his attempts to woo her Freshman year, but what could he do, when all of them were crowded around, jostling and joking, adding suggestions. 

Justin sat against the wall of the Blue Spot Liquor Store, chewing on a string of raspberry liquorice as he listened in the dark. 

And then it had been Alex’s turn – and his reason, tape three – because Bryce had smiled crookedly, swivelled the piece of paper on the cafeteria table, and slid it across to the blonde boy sitting opposite him. 

“What do you think, Standall?” he had asked, and the others had fallen quiet, everyone crowded around the table in their varsity jackets and Liberty Tigers t-shirts aware of Alex’s desperation to fit in, despite that he had no place amongst them, too slight and unathletic and smart and sarcastic and well-dressed to ever truly be one of them but eager for their acceptance nonetheless. Bryce cocked an amused eyebrow, passing Alex the pen. “Any prize winners come to mind?”

After that, he took a walk from the Blue Spot into the suburbs, and listened to the transgressions of Tyler Down. Painfully awkward, prickly, off-putting Tyler, who seemed to oscillate between desperation for acceptance and fury at the rejection of his peers. By the time the photo of the two girls kissing had reached Justin – via Ramon via Angie Romero via Chloe Rice – most of the school had been buzzing about it, the boys zooming in and screenshotting parts of the photo, texting it to one another to suggest candidates from their classes. Despite that they reached consensus fairly quickly – the photo was clearly of Hannah Baker and Courtney Crimson - the idea of two girls kissing was far more interesting than the truth, and enough to give a flurry of rumours life, as several versions featuring various candidates sprouted up and amalgamated into more and more twisted versions that shifted further away from the truth with each iteration. 

By the time he reached tape 4, Justin had been listening most of the night, and the exhaustion and guilt and anger were boiling hot in his chest as he stood in the dark pre-dawn glow in the Down’s backyard, listening to Hannah describe the feeling of being violated unawares, of being frightened, of having her privacy stolen from her. Frustration at her helplessness – at his own helplessness, because what in the fuck had Hannah done this for? What did she want him to _do_ about any of it? – bubbled up inside him, and without thinking about it, Justin crossed to the garden bed, picked up a rock the size of a baseball, and hurled it at the window. 

In the dark bedroom, Justin could just make out Tyler sitting up in bed, bleary-eyed and surprised, and Justin willed the boy to notice him standing there, to say something, to come outside and confront him, to give him an outlet for the relentless thundering battle of emotions inside of him. He thought that he saw Tyler turn toward the window, peering through the blinds, but then a stream of light from the hallway flooded into the room as Tyler’s father appeared from the hallway, and Justin bolted from the yard.

If his mother was bothered that he hadn’t come home from school, or that he had spent the whole night walking around the county, listening to the dictated suicide note of a dead girl, it didn’t worry her enough to even send a text to check up on him. Justin ducked into the change rooms early that morning to catch a shower and change into the spare clothes that he kept in his locker, ducking behind a corner when he was startled by the slam of a locker door from the next row. Pressing back into his shadowy hiding place, he waited, frowning when he spotted Monty in the reflection of the mirrors opposite, bent over his backpack as he tugged free a Liberty Tigers t-shirt and stuffed the plaid shirt he had been wearing the day before into his bag in its place. When he straightened to pull the t-shirt on, Justin could make out the blackish crescent bruises down his right flank and across his back, dark imprints of a boot heel. Clinging to the Walkman in one hand and his backpack in the other, Justin waited quietly while the other boy zipped his bag closed, tossed a towel over his shoulder, and left the locker room. 

Justin only had the energy to deal with so many issues in tandem, and as he stood under the hot spray of the shower, he focussed on compartmentalising the boy and his bruises so that he could focus on what he needed to get through. 

Jess was back on campus, and though there was something off about her – there had been since the night of the party, although she tried to deny it and he tried to ignore it – she wasn’t any different to when he had seen her the previous Friday. There was nothing in the way that she approached him and kissed his cheek, the sweet smell of blueberries on her breath from breakfast, that suggested she had any awareness of a suicide note wrapped up in a blue floral shoebox. There was a heavy sadness in her – once, there had been genuine friendship between Jess and Hannah, and despite that it had died some time before Hannah had, the loss still hurt – and Justin focussed on distracting her with silly stories and jokes, grinning every time she gave up a smile or a laugh. 

During Coach Patrick’s history lesson – another John Wayne ‘historical’ classic – and study hall, Justin was able to burn his way through another couple of tapes, and thankfully, these had the effect he had been hoping for, providing reasons for him to scale down the weight of his transgression against Hannah. What Marcus and Courtney had done to Hannah felt far more deliberate in Hannah’s telling than Justin knew his slight against her had been. He hadn’t meant to target her, the way Marcus had, and he hadn’t actively thrown her to the wolves to protect himself, like Courtney. 

The next tape, number 7, was almost as hard as Jessica’s.

Zach.

Justin listened as he rode the bus home, having seen Jess off with a kiss as she headed to after-school cheer practice and waving off Bryce’s invitation to go drinking with the guys at the docks. The Rover had pulled up where Justin was waiting for the bus in the school parking lot, Monty in the passenger seat and Luke in the back, Zach following behind with Ramon in the Audi. 

“You sure, dude?” Bryce had asked, leaning across Monty to give Justin’s rumpled clothes an up and down look, settling on his pale complexion and the dark crescents beneath his eyes. “You look like you could use a stiff one.”

Justin had shaken his head and waved him off.

“Nah, man. I’m good. My Ma needs me at home.”

Bryce had shrugged and pulled away, Zach lifting a hand to wave at Justin as he followed. 

On the opposite side of the parking lot, Tony had been leaning against the bumper of the Mustang, watching. 

As Justin walked from the bus stop to the apartment building, the anger grew again. He didn’t know anything about stolen notes in Communications class, but he knew Zach. He knew how kind the other boy was, that he always defaulted to doing the best he could in a difficult situation. He had stuck his neck out for Justin on more than one occasion, covering for him when he showed up late or hungover to basketball practice, advocating personally as team captain on Justin’s behalf when his grades had sunk below the minimum average required to play, and had gone out of his way to get Justin involved in study groups, monitoring him by text every night before they had a test or exam to make sure he had studied. The guys had had a field day after Hannah had torn shreds from Zach when he had approached her in the cafeteria that day, and Hannah framing the olive branch that Zach had attempted to extend to her as an entitled grasp at what he felt should be his left Justin fuming.

When he made it back to the apartment, Seth was nowhere to be seen and his mother was slumped on the couch, halfway faded and well on her way to nodding out entirely. As guilty as it made him feel, Justin was glad for it. When she was high or manic, she was giddy with joy, but unpredictable. On a whim, she would decide to dye her hair or paint the whole apartment, only to get tired or start coming down halfway through and abandon the task. Once, she had announced that they were going to Vegas, and even though it had been ten o’clock at night and he had been eight years old, she had stuffed a random assortment of their clothes into backpacks and they had boarded a bus, and her high spirits had lasted as far as a little desert diner on the outskirts of the city, where he had eaten a huge stack of French toast drowned in syrup and then slept on the cracked leather seat of a booth while she sullenly panhandled outside for enough change to pay for the bus fare home. His mother was an equal opportunity junkie – as long as a substance had the ability to make her feel some way other than what the naturally occurring chemicals in her brain were offering, she was up for it – but when she was on stimulants, meth or pills or whatever else she could get her hands on, the mix was volatile. Heroin, as dangerous as it was, left her predictably docile, and right now, that was about as much of her as Justin had the energy to handle. 

He found some deli meat in the fridge that passed a sniff test – just barely – and slapped it between some bread, drowning it in ketchup to mask any suggestion that it might be past its best before date. Sitting on his bed in his room, Justin ate his makeshift dinner, and listened to Hannah describe the next in a long queue of failed connections, as Ryan Shaver sought and cultivated and then inevitably broke her trust. Justin wouldn’t have expected anything more from someone so transparently vapid as Ryan, and wondered how Hannah hadn’t seen it coming a mile off. 

Shaking his head at the naivety that had become a consistently unspoken theme as he listened, Justin popped the Walkman open and turned over to tape 9.

And over the next thirty minutes, everything crumbled apart. 

~

Justin’s nightmares came without that macabre twist of dreamscape dread – the horror in-built and naturally occurring in the memories as they were, without filter or exaggeration. 

Bryce’s face in the moment before he slammed the bedroom door, that incredulous mix of disappointment and frustration and scolding, like Justin was a dog who wouldn’t be brought to heel.

The click of the lock and the cacophony of shrieking memory that it doused him in, the heat of a large body crowding him against the wall in his narrow single bed, a harsh whisper against his ear, the rasp of stubble against his skin, the suffocating dark and the sound of the television in the living room, where his mother was nodding in front of a blind-date reality show. 

Stumbling numbly down the stairs, his knees attempting to buckle beneath him with every step, his stomach churning with alcohol and trauma and guilt, his eyes and cheeks messy with humiliated, helpless tears. 

Monty peering at him when he reached the kitchen, past drunk and bleary-eyed, breaking into a crooked half-smile when he asked, “the fuck happened to you?”

What Justin wanted to say was “I need your help.” What he wanted to do was go back upstairs, and point at Jessica’s bedroom door, and say “help me break this down.” Probably, Monty wouldn’t even ask why, content with the opportunity for mindless destruction as he rolled his shoulders and took a few steps back to clear a decent running start. 

What he wanted to say was “I need to borrow your phone,” because his battery had run flat before he had even stopped at the gas station to buy Jessica that stupid flower, and he needed to call the police.

What he wanted to say was nothing – just scream wordlessly, to release all of that searing hot pain lashing his insides, choking him, crushing his lungs and tightening around his heart, to keen so loud and intense that the house shook, the walls cracked and the ceiling trembled and the foundation crumbled, buckling the whole building down on top of them. 

What Justin wanted to say was the truth.

What he actually said was “fuck off, Monty,” and shoved past, submerging himself in the thundering music and press of bodies in the living room. 

~

Tony was palming his keys to head out the front door for school when his phone vibrated in the pocket of his leather jacket. He tugged it free and swiped the lock screen open to read the text from Angie. 

_Justin Foley is asking me for your number. You want me to give it to him?_

Tony thought for a moment about the shoebox underneath his bed, then hit reply.

_Sure. Go ahead_

He met Justin at the Blue Spot. Justin, leaning against the side wall chewing his thumbnail anxiously, trotted across the road as soon as he spotted the Mustang, yanking open the passenger door almost before the car had even rolled to a stop and dumping himself into the passenger seat.

“Dude, what the _fuck_?” Justin demanded, his blue eyes wild and bloodshot, dark circles of exhaustion shadowed beneath them. “You’ve listened to them? All the tapes?”

Tony held up a hand, stopping him before any further demands, questions or accusations could pour free.

“Put your seatbelt on.”

Justin’s jaw clenched, and he looked like the only thing he wanted to do with the seatbelt was wrap it around Tony’s throat and attempt to strangle him with it, but he did as instructed, throwing himself back into the seat like a stubborn child and reaching across to secure the buckle. His backpack sat half open in the footwell between his sneakers, the aqua and black floral box visible inside. 

“You’re not even on them,” Justin muttered, jamming his elbow against the window as Tony pulled out into the street, his thumbnail finding its way between his teeth again. “Fuck you for that, by the way.” He cast a sharp, sidelong look at Tony. “What in the fuck does any of this have to do with you, when you’re not even on the fucking tapes?”

Tony held his silence as he drove, considering. That morning, when he had arrived at Justin Foley’s apartment building, the only conscious thought he had been capable of forming was that he wanted to punch the other boy in the teeth, the instinct to make him pay for his part in making Hannah feel as though she had no other choice the only clear notion amongst the swirl of grief and guilt and fatigue and confusion and shock and the image of that fucking body bag, burned into the back of his eyelids, so that it was all he could see any more, accompanied by the wrenching howl of Mrs Baker’s sobs. 

Part of him wanted to admit that, despite that the intent of the tapes seemed to him to be ownership – Hannah wanted each of their subjects to understand and acknowledge and accept and pay for what they had done – that didn’t have to be all that they were, or all that they achieved. Their shared guilt could turn them against each other – certainly, his first instinct was to separate what he had done, or what he had failed to do, from what others had done, to scale himself against the contributions of others to convince himself that the ways he had let Hannah down were not so bad – but he had to acknowledge, what they shared, their terrible responsibility, could also bring them together, to support each other, to try to do better. 

It didn’t seem to be what Hannah wanted. 

And if he were a stronger person, maybe he would have tried harder with that first tape. 

Finally, all he offered was,

“That’s between me and Hannah.”

Justin scoffed, shaking his head.

“Fuck you, Padilla,” the other boy muttered venomously, tearing at his thumbnail so viciously with his teeth that the nail bed began to bleed. Justin looked as though he scarcely slept since the box of tapes had arrived at his apartment building, his face ashen and his clothes rumpled, as if he had either slept in them or had picked them up off of his bedroom floor to dress that morning, even his prized varsity jacket creased and in need of laundering, the cuffs grubby where he tugged them down over his palms. 

“So, what the fuck do I do now?” Justin demanded, casting a wild look at Tony. “Hannah said she made two sets, and as far as I can tell, only you and me got them. And seeing as how you’re not on them, mine have gotta be the set that gets passed on, and you’re the fucking _keeper of the tapes_ or whatever.” 

He framed it as a statement, but Tony could hear the question in his tone, and nodded his agreement. It had taken listening to the whole set – moving past that gut punch of the instructions on tape 1, of not knowing when or if his name was going to come up – before he had come to the conflicted realisation, at the end of Porter’s tape, that he was not a reason. Or he was, but his task was different to what Hannah had charged the others with doing. Harder, in some ways, because he wasn’t one of them, not the way they saw it, even though he knew that wasn’t true, as he realised he was going to have to relive this nightmare thirteen times over – if they made it to the end. 

Justin kicked at the base of the dashboard with one dirty sneaker, earning himself a raised eyebrow in warning. “Seriously, the fuck do we do now?”

Tony shook his head.

“Oh, no,” he insisted bluntly, holding up a hand to cut Justin off when he began to protest. “There’s no ‘we’. The next step is up to you.”

“What, so it’s my choice?” Justin asked, incredulous, although a thread of interest wound through the question. “I can decide to just do nothing? I mean, we could agree that, right?” He seemed to grasp on to the idea, with some desperation, turning in his seat toward Tony. “You and me, right now. The tapes don’t go any further, and no one else has to get hurt.”

There was a note of pleading, a tiny hint of hope, beneath the suggestion, and Tony felt a small sting of guilt. Of course, that was an option. He could burn the tapes under his bed, and Justin could throw his into the dumpster behind the apartment building, and no one would ever know the difference. Hannah Baker would be another statistic; a pretty, sad, dead girl who disappeared herself for no reason that anyone else could discern, and Justin would have to live with the knowledge of what he had done and what he had failed to do, would have to go on lying, and protecting the monster who had been his only friend for almost a decade, and Tony could let him. 

Except that he couldn’t. 

He had already let Hannah down. He wouldn’t do it again. 

She had protected him once, and she was right, he owed her. He didn’t want the role of avenging her death, but she had charged him with it, and he couldn’t refuse it now.

“You could choose that,” Tony agreed, lifting his shoulder in a shrug. “But I’m not going to. I’d have to release my copies of the tapes.” He didn’t shift his gaze from the road, even as Justin’s accusatory gaze cut in his direction. “Publicly.”

Justin shook his head, his lips parted in disbelief and dismay.

“Or,” Tony offered. “You could do what Hannah wanted.” He hoped that it wasn’t obvious that, with only her cryptic instructions to go by and using a process of logical elimination, it had taken him a little while to figure out exactly what that was. “You could pass the tapes on to the next person.”

Justin’s jaw worked as he clenched and unclenched his teeth. 

“You’re a fucking asshole,” he fumed, exhaustion and desperation coiling with anger and dread in his voice. “You know what you’re making me do. You’re telling me I have to destroy my girlfriend. My best friend. Zach. Everyone else. For _nothing_.” He shook his head, as if shaking it hard enough might make it all go away. “It’s not going to bring her back. She’s fucking gone and there’s nothing we can do about it now and this is _bullshit_ and you’re a _fucking asshole_.”

Tony let Justin run himself out of steam, his hands trembling and his breath shaking. In his peripheral vision, he thought he could see tears brightening the boy’s eyes. Part of him wanted to reach out and place a hand on Justin’s arm, to let him know that it was OK to feel the way that he was feeling – in fact, that was entirely the point – but he couldn’t quite do it. That wasn’t what Hannah wanted, not as far as he could tell, and anyway, this was a boy who treated girls like objects, who allowed rumours to spread about them that he knew to be false, who let their reputations be torn apart to bolster his own, who would step aside to allow his friend to take what he wanted from a girl who had any choice in the matter taken away from her by the two of them.

He had to accept what he had done. They all did.

“Maybe so,” he said. “But the choice – what to do now – it’s still yours.”

Justin scoffed.

“Fuck you, the choice is mine. I fuck everything up for the people I care about, or I let you do it. I got no fucking choice.”

“You do,” Tony insisted evenly, pulling the Mustang to a gentle stop at a red light. “And I think you’ll make the right one.” He glanced along the intersection to their left, where Bakers Drug Store stood locked and empty, the _closed_ sign hanging in the door. “This time.”

Justin said nothing, sitting quiet and still to his right. Calmly, Tony looked at Justin in the rear-view mirror as the light changed to green. 

“Can I give you a ride somewhere?”

Justin stared at the box in the backpack at his feet, and after a long moment, shook his head.

“Yeah,” he murmured. “You can take me to Jess’s house.”

~

**Later**

Monty had given up on trying to finish his math homework at the kitchen table. His father was shouting at a boxing match on the television in the living room and none of the formulas made any sense, regardless of the distraction. Besides, it was too late in the year to improve his grade enough to avoid remedial math in the summer, and it wasn’t as if Liberty didn’t more or less pre-emptively sign him up for summer school each year, anyway. He needed football, and they needed him to keep sacking opposition linebackers twice his size to protect their star quarterback, so it had become something of an unspoken arrangement. He turned over his phone, laid face down to deter the glances his mother had cast toward him every few minutes as she moved around the kitchen, cleaning and tidying as an excuse to keep an eye on him before she had retired to bed. 

**22 17**

Sneaking out at night, getting up while it was still dark to access to mailboxes and newspapers under the cover of the pre-dawn grey, lying awake thinking about what he was doing and why, and how it wasn’t fucking working – all of it was wearing on him, splintering his concentration and sapping his energy. Even if he did have even a shred of natural ability in math, he was too exhausted to focus.

Monty dumped the stack of books and loose paper on the bedside cabinet in his room, tossing his glasses on top, and considered dumping himself straight onto the bed in much the same fashion – changing out of his clothes, even taking off his shoes, felt like an unnecessary use of energy. The light was off, the door was ajar, he could just lie down, for a while. Set an alarm. Porter’s house wasn’t that far. He could go in the early morning, before the sun came up, deliver his message before the soon-to-be-ex counsellor took to the stand to give his testimony-

Monty flinched at a knock on the window. 

Casting a quick glance back at the door, he swung one hand back to push it most of the way closed, then knelt on the mattress to lift the window pane. 

Chloe, standing outside in light cotton pyjamas, Ugg boots and a hastily pulled on sweater, shoved the illuminated screen of her phone at him, her expression tight with worry. 

“Did you know about this?”

“Jesus, keep your voice down. My dad’s still awake,” Monty hissed, leaning toward the window to look at the phone screen, bright in the dark yard beyond the windowpane. “What even is that?”

“Hannah’s tapes,” she said, her tone conflicted, as if part of her thought it should be obvious, and the other part hoped that she was mistaken, that they weren’t what she thought at all. “Someone posted them online. Except they’re not all Hannah’s. The last one-“ her voice wavered, and for one heart-thudding moment, he thought she might cry. He hadn’t seen her cry since a week before her step-father had left. She took a shaky breath, and scraped up a scant amount of control. “It’s Bryce.”

_Shit_.

Almost harder than trying to imagine effective ways to deter testimony was attempting to predict Bryce’s reactions – to the things that people said about him, to the rumours that were starting to circulate more and more openly on school campus, to Monty’s open-ended questions about how they could deal with this together. He didn’t seem to take any of it seriously, despite encouragement, responding with dismissive frustration to any attempts at opening the topic to discussion, and he was completely closed book on how much he knew, leaving the nasty surprises to others to deal with. 

Every time he asked Bryce about the trial, it was on the tip of his tongue to tell him – to explain what he had been doing, the lengths he had been going to in order to protect him, to deal with this problem that he refused to acknowledge – but something held him back. Underneath his determination to protect Bryce, himself, Chloe, their friends, the team, in the cracking foundations beneath that dedication, he knew what Bryce’s reaction would be. He knew that the only way that this could end, if Bryce ever found out what he had done, what he was doing, was bad. Because nothing he had ever done for Bryce that Bryce hadn’t directly instructed was wrong, by default – he knew that from making that mistake time and time again – and yet he couldn’t bring himself to do nothing. Not when Chloe was afraid of what might happen. Not when he stood to lose _everything_.

Monty cocked his head in beckon, and held the window open while Chloe climbed inside. The light from the screen of her phone flashed over her bare legs as she clambered onto the mattress, and he thought he saw the red imprint of fresh bruising on her thigh, but it had been a little while since she had made the climb instead of him – could be, she had fumbled on her way over the fence. While he eased the window back into place, she dug in the pocket of her sweater, producing a coil of earbuds. 

It had always been less difficult to share her larger bed, but when they shared his, it had been easier when they were smaller, the narrow mattress far less accommodating now than it had been when they were six. Back then, they had been able to fit shoulder to shoulder, her leg slung across his to prop her heel on the windowsill, or tops and tails, when it was a bad night and she needed to sleep and didn’t want to do it alone. On the really bad nights, she wouldn’t say anything, and he wouldn’t either, just lying back and letting her arrange them both until she was as comfortable as she was going to get, normally with her head tucked under his chin so that he could feel the way she trembled with effort to press down the sobs trapped in her chest. Despite the small space, they manoeuvred into the positions they always took, her closer to the window and further from the door, laying on their sides facing one another to fit in the narrow space. 

Monty watched her uncoil the earbuds, his heartbeat thundering in his ears. He thought of the photo Justin had shoved in his face that morning in the hospital parking lot, that blurred edged little snapshot of a polaroid, Bryce naked from the waist down and grinning, a girl’s arm and leg sprawled out from beneath him, the light discolouration scarring her leg from tearing the skin from her shin trying to learn how to kick-flip her skateboard when she was seven. He watched her plug the jack into the bottom of her phone, and felt truth bubbling in his throat, hot and acidic like stomach acid, sharp edged and painful to swallow down. 

He couldn’t.

Saying it would make it real. And if it was real, it would fucking hurt. 

He had tread both paths and, knowing the alternative, would make the same choice, every time.

A problem shared is a problem halved was bullshit if the other person wasn’t equipped for the burden, or simply didn’t care. 

He cared so much that it hurt. And that was exactly why he couldn’t tell her. 

“Here,” she whispered, offering the earbuds. Avoiding her gaze was difficult with less than a foot of space between them, so he watched her fingers instead, hoping to hide his hesitation behind distraction, as she pressed one earbud into her ear, and he did the same. As she flicked her thumb across the screen of her phone, part of him wanted to grab her hand, make her stop – all of this was already hard, it was already near enough to fucking impossible - and he didn’t want to hear what Bryce had said. There was no possibility, in this universe or any other, that it had been anything good. 

Chloe tapped ‘play’. 

A moment of rustling gave way to Bryce’s voice, clear and confident. 

_“Jensen. The fuck do you want?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Firstly, I apologise to any Hannah fans - in my effort to capture Justin's anger and denial in season 1, I let a lot of my own anger about how the tapes hurt so many people leak in... a lot!
> 
> Thank you to comfortwriter28 for your suggestions/head canons regarding Justin and Tony's interactions over the tapes, your helpful and encouraging beta feedback, and picking up my pesky Australianisms! If you aren't already, pop over and read "At the End of the Tunnel" - especially if you're a Justin Foley-stan :)
> 
> Next up is Chloe, and a little look at the cracks starting to form in her relationship with Bryce, as she realises that she might not be as safe and protected with him as she had hoped. 
> 
> As always, thank you for reading and commenting! x


	8. Anniversary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chloe begins to realise that she is not as safe and secure with Bryce as she had hoped.

Chloe swallowed hard against the instinct to either slap Bryce, or dissolve into tears.

Pressed into his arm, her hand resting high on his thigh beneath the table, she had leaned close to speak against his ear over the music.

“Come dance with me.”

And Bryce rolled his eyes.

“I’m _talking_ , babe,” he said, his perfectly polite tone stretched taut and terse over impatience, the way that a parent spoke to a bothersome child. Across the table, Zach and Scott averted their eyes and shifted uncomfortably, the empty beer bottles in front of them useless to offer a distraction. Nudging her hand from his thigh beneath the table, Bryce glanced over her shoulder and lifted his chin. “Monty’ll dance with you.”

Monty, arriving at the table with two Coronas and a vodka cranberry in a chilled tumbler glass, hesitated as he set the drinks down, as if considering whether it might be safer to pretend he had never been there and retreat the way he had come. Chloe’s jaw set as she eyed Bryce sidelong, and he steadfastly refused to meet her gaze; his instructions imparted, he simply waited for them to comply, reaching to take a casual sip from his whiskey glass. 

Wordlessly, Chloe snatched the vodka cranberry, swallowed a large mouthful as she stood from her seat, and slammed it down on the table hard enough to rattle the ice cubes inside. Bryce turned back to resume his story, even as Chloe grasped Monty’s wrist and led him toward the stairs to the dancefloor. 

Bryce was a good dancer – of course he was – he had taken lessons for a few years when he was young so that he wouldn’t embarrass his parents at weddings or escorting their friends’ daughters to debutante balls. Monty didn’t have Bryce’s confidence – the kind of self-assuredness that came from having passable skill in most things and knowing that no one would say a word otherwise, even if he didn’t – but he still had a little Latin rhythm lurking underneath all of that rigidity that Big Monty had spent years beating into him, and he kept pace with her as the tempo of the trap-salsa remix increased and the bass thudded around them. 

He didn’t want to, that much was clear; but as he had done for a decade, he did it for her. 

Ten years old and out after dark, sneaking from their bedroom windows and meeting at the corner to ride their skateboards down to the skate park. It was too noisy to keep skating after the lights had gone out at the houses the lined the surrounding streets, so they left their boards on the edge of the bowl and slid down to the bottom like children on a slippery-dip. Sometimes, they lay on either side of the stormwater drain and talked quietly while they looked up at the night sky. Other times, they would compete to make each other laugh, pulling faces and whispering dirty jokes that Monty had heard at the bar with his father, or replicating the dance moves they had seen when her stepdad played Rolling Stones or Midnight Oil music videos on the television while he shaved in the bathroom on Sunday mornings. Sometimes, they didn’t say anything, when all they needed was to not be alone.

Chloe turned a look toward the table. Bryce was fully engaged in conversation, leaning toward Zach and Scott with one elbow propped on the tabletop, the other hand moving animatedly as he spoke, a posture that mirrored the form of his father, sitting at the head of the dinner table. He didn’t so much as glance toward the dancefloor, a slanted grin tugging up the corner of his mouth as the others laughed at what he had said. Stung, Chloe glanced at Monty. He wasn’t looking at her either, his attention on something or someone over her shoulder, deeper in the throng of heated, swaying bodies. Clenching her jaw, Chloe flipped her loose hair over her shoulder, turned, and pressed back, hard and tight, against the crotch of his jeans.

Almost immediately, she felt Monty’s hand on her shoulder, attempting to create more distance between them, and she twisted to duck beneath it, tucking in closer as she swung back to face him, tugging him forward by the hips even as he tried to step back, darting a look toward the table while his hands tried to capture hers, to knock them loose.

“You’re going to get me in trouble,” he said, ducking his head to speak against her ear, close enough that she could hear the faint sliver of pleading that lined the words, as he caught her smaller hands in his own. Chloe looked up at him, eyes dark and defiant.

“So, what?” she asked, stepping closer, trapping him against the dancers at his back, feeling a little pang of satisfaction – mild, barely at all – at the panic that flashed in his eyes. She cocked an eyebrow. “We’ll be in trouble together.”

Monty shook his head, his teeth sinking into his lower lip as he cast another wary glance in the direction of the table, where Scott was watching them over his beer. A frown creased Monty’s forehead as his gaze returned to meet her fiery stare. 

“You know it doesn’t work like that.”

He was right, and Chloe knew she was being unfair, but it was all fucking unfair. 

Bryce had agreed to take her out dancing for their anniversary two weeks ago, while riding the high of a win on the football field, pumped full of the adoration of the roaring crowd and lifting her into a passionate celebratory kiss. She had bought a dress – had dipped into her savings and agonized over that stupid dress – and it had been for nothing, because he had shown up at her house with Zach, Monty and Scott in tow, and had offered her one of his bland, charming smiles, glancing at her breasts but no further, while the other three avoided looking at her at all, bashful colour burning across Zach’s cheeks when he accidentally copped her angry glare in the rear view mirror in the Rover on the way to the club. 

Bryce had been in one of those _moods _, acting oblivious to the source of her ire. Chloe had been furious by the time they reached the club, and Monty almost got them all turned away at the door for showing up in jeans and a plaid shirt, but Zach and Scott had managed to talk the doorman around, just for Bryce to ignore her all night, holding court for his loyal followers, tugging his hand out from underneath hers when she clasped it on the table.__

__Sometimes this was a game between them – one Chloe had a shadowy grasp of the rules for, but not enough to ever win by anything more than a fluke. Chloe got the impression that the game had existed well before their relationship, that she was simply the latest player to step up to the mark, and it both frustrated and frightened her, as she oscillated between apprehension for what she had gotten herself into and a determination to win at any cost. She refused to follow in the footsteps of her mother, to allow herself to be ground down and cowed by a man._ _

__Bryce craved to be needed – and if not needed, then at least wanted – by others. Her needs were multifaceted, some deep and weighted, sharp-edged and awkwardly shaped, others surface-bound and clear, ripe and within reach. Those were the ones he played with most frequently. Like a switch had been flipped, he would change from being full of tactile desire for her, his touch ranging from a casual, possessive arm around her shoulders to an insistent grasp beneath her blouse. And then the next moment, so quickly and unexpected that it left her breathless, he would push her away when he knew she wanted his attention, his affection, his validation. Suddenly, there was nothing more important to him than practice, or homework, or his parent’s expectations, things that he normally treated with flippant dismissiveness, and she could get in the queue for his attention, take a number and wait her turn. Or not. Outwardly, he appeared entirely disinterested, either way._ _

__The next move was hers._ _

__Chloe could pout, or return the cold shoulder, but that rarely bothered Bryce, and she always caved first. She could keep trying, needling and pressing him to give in, and sometimes he would, his smile gleefully satisfied, but other times it went entirely the opposite way, and he shoved her away even harder, irritation drawing his expression harsh and cold._ _

__Sometimes, it was a simple game of chicken, of testing the boundaries of one another’s envy. If he didn’t want her time, then she would make a point of spending it with the girls from the cheer squad or her sister. She would take extra shifts at work to make herself less available if he did want to see her. Took herself shopping and went to see movies, just to prove that she didn’t need him for that – or maybe, if he kept this up, for anything. But while those alternatives served as a distraction for a little while, made her feel like she was an active participant in the game and not just a pawn being moved around on the board, blindly and against her will, it rarely turned Bryce’s head, no matter how many photos she posted on Instagram or how many times she checked her phone to see if he had texted her._ _

__Sometimes – and this option was more of a gamble than any other, both in terms of stakes and reward – Chloe took her need elsewhere and flaunted it for Bryce to see._ _

__It could be innocent enough, something so small and simple that only the two of them even recognised it for what it was. She might ask Zach for a copy of his notes from Biology, a class that Bryce had come so close to flunking out of that Coach Rick had pulled a few strings and gotten him transferred before he was placed on academic probation. She could swivel on the bench at their table in the cafeteria, bumping her knee against Bryce’s so that he couldn’t pretend to ignore her any longer, as she swept her hair over her shoulder and asked Luke if he would unclasp the delicate gold chain that Bryce had bought her as congratulations when the squad voted her captain – a subtle reminder to them both that, if it hadn’t been for Sheri’s absence and him at her side, Chloe never would have been awarded the position. She would laugh brightly at Scott’s jokes, which were often childish at best, denying Bryce her gaze when he cocked an eyebrow at her amusement._ _

__When it did work – and those occasions were sparse and rare – it sometimes worked too well, and he was all desperate, bruising hands, his mouth hot and his grasp urgent and careless on her skin. Other times, he made her pay for it, and not in a nice way._ _

__All of these machinations, dancing about one another and shifting the people around them into position to facilitate the game, made her feel silly and vapid and desperate, but better than doing nothing, better than waiting for him to call her to his side as if she had no worth unless he granted it to her, and still, a vast majority of the time, it was ineffectual._ _

__Desperation, humiliating but driven by a determination not to allow him to win, even as a small part of her recognised that what she was doing to secure victory was exactly what he wanted, drove her to consider things that she never would have otherwise._ _

__She had contemplated that seeing her with someone else, imagining that all of that playful teasing was for him - which wasn’t entirely untrue - that her need for him ran so strong that she would attempt to satisfy it with a pale shade in his absence, that she were so desperate that she would resort to games to tempt his envy; that _might_ work. And maybe, if she had had felt more confident and secure when she looked at herself in the mirror, she might have tried it with someone else. _ _

__Maybe, if Monty wasn’t the only boy she had ever met that she trusted not to hurt her, she wouldn’t have tried it with him._ _

__Because, it had occurred to her that, as risky as that move was to her, she could argue that the reward was worth it. But for the other person – for her target, who, if it were anyone other than Monty, probably wouldn’t even realise they were being used as a pawn – there could be no reward. For them, there was only the risk that, while Bryce might not make her pay for tempting his jealousy, he would make her target pay, for certain._ _

__And now, here she was, her feet aching in brand new strappy wedge sandals, zipped into a dress so tight she could barely breathe, spurned and stinging with her own stupidity and need, and making Monty pay for all of it._ _

__The tempo of the music slowed as the next song faded in, and Chloe stepped back, grateful when Monty let her hands slip from his only far enough to grasp her fingers instead._ _

__ The day of Jeff’s funeral had been damp and chilly, the sun barely breaking the grey cloud cover, and Sheri had been so unsteady by the time that they arrived at the church that Chloe had wrapped an arm around her shoulders to help her inside. Jess had been sitting at the end of the back row, eyes red-rimmed and Justin’s arm around her, Monty and Luke to his left. They had shuffled down when she had asked, clearing space between Justin and Monty, and Justin and Jess had both reached for Sheri as she crumpled into tears, while Chloe sat helpless beside her, guilty but grateful for the distraction of the girl’s grief as her hand found Monty’s on the pew in the narrow space between them, and she gripped his fingers tightly, their expressions never shifting, even as he squeezed back.  _ _

__Lights flickered over them as Chloe swayed along with the music, relieved when he looked away, over her shoulder again, while she fought back the sting of tears._ _

__“Do you think Bryce would hurt me?”_ _

__Monty blinked, his eyes searching her face. She could see the indecision in his features, uncertain whether she was seeking comforting reassurance or the bare truth. **Be honest** , she thought, meeting his gaze, **I already know. I just need you to say it**. She kept her expression carefully blank. **Please, just lie. I can’t take hearing it. Not from you.**._ _

__ Sitting on the living room floor, not long after they had moved in and their furniture and income were so scant that her mother could afford a basic sound system before she had the funds for a cabinet to house it in, so it sat directly on the threadbare carpet, and they flicked through her collection of CD’s from the 80’s and 90’s, stacked on top of the television, ballads by Michael Bolton and Bryan Adams, funky rock tunes by the Eurythmics and the Church, girl power anthems by Alanis Morissette and Whitney Houston, and she leaned into his shoulder, her hair trailing over the handprint bruise wrapped around his bicep in honey blonde tipped with kool-aid tinted pink, as she sang along with Sheryl Crow. _ _

__ Lie to me – I promise I’ll believe. _ _

__ Lie to me – but please, don’t leave. _ _

__“No,” he said, finally, his expression unreadable, tone deliberately even. “He cares about you.”_ _

__Chloe nodded, squeezed his fingers, and offered the shade of a smile._ _

__“I know,” she said, and wondered if he could hear the thin knife edge of intent in her voice as she added her own spiteful lie in return. “He cares about you, too.”_ _

__She couldn’t see any shift in his features, but she knew how practiced he was at snatching barbs out of the air before they seemed to land and tucking them away inside, allowing them to find their mark but masking their impact. It used to frighten her, the way that he would offer nothing more than a blink and unbroken eye contact to indicate that he was listening while his father battered him with as much undiluted cruelty as he could summons before the effort drove him in search of another drink. And afterwards, Monty seemed entirely unaffected, simply returning to whatever he had been doing as if nothing at all had happened._ _

__But she had seen what all of that poison did, hidden and untreated, inside._ _

__She knew the burn of it blackening her insides, first hand._ _

__“I gotta take a leak.”_ _

__Chloe only nodded at Monty’s predictable non-reaction to her attempt to snare a reaction from him, and let go of one of his hands so that he could lead the way through the crowd by the other._ _

__“Me, too.”_ _

__They moved through the tightly packed thatch of sweating, dancing bodies without speaking, Chloe keeping close, allowing him to wind a path for her to follow. She almost felt compelled to close her eyes, to sink into the thudding bass and strobe lighting, and simply allow herself to be led. Some nights, after a few drinks or a few cones at the pool house, she felt as if she were slipping backwards into herself, and at first it was frightening, the loss of control, but fighting to get it back heightened her panic, and sometimes, it was comforting to let it go, to let her eyelashes fall to half-mast as Bryce, sitting beside her, turned to her and smiled._ _

__ By fourteen, they had outgrown their skateboards, and besides, it would be strange, to be seen together around town by their friends and classmates, so they went hiking some weekend afternoons, catching one of the free buses that left from the visitor’s centre and getting off at the lookout points where tourists peered through binoculars before climbing back on board. She was in charge of snacks and drinks, and he was responsible for picking their route, leading the way along winding trails to the creeks and waterholes hiding amongst the greenery, or up to the edge of the cliff faces overlooking the county. He would reach his hand back to steady her where the path was steep or loose underfoot, supporting her until they broke out of the brush and into the open space, the winding streets of Evergreen sprawling at their feet, and sometimes, she would keep hold of his hand, even after the ground became solid and even. She felt safest, that way. _ _

__Mercifully, there was no line in the hallway outside the door to the ladies bathroom, and Chloe made herself let go of his hand casually, despite that part of her wanted to grasp his elbow with the other hand, to tug him back from the men’s room, where he headed without another word, and ask him if they could leave. She didn’t care if they had to go on foot the whole way. She would gladly walk the streets with her sandals flung over her shoulder, or maybe he would even offer her a piggy-back ride, the way he had that day after she had torn her shins below her kneepads in her first attempt at a kick-flip. The skate park would be cold but quiet at this time of night, and they could set her phone to shuffle-play from the list she had titled C+M, filled with all of those songs that they had listened to from her mother’s CD collection, her stepfather’s Sunday morning routine, his punk and her emo phase, and they could dance and make each other laugh, butchering the Lindy Hop to Fall Out Boy and voguing to Madonna._ _

__The bathroom door swung closed behind her, and Chloe took a slow breath. The floor was littered with puddles of spilled water and single sheets of toilet paper, tracked in and out of stalls on the bottom of high heeled shoes, and a few women stood at the mirrors on spindly legs beneath spangled dresses, retouching their lipstick and offering one another spritzes of perfume or unidentifiable pills from their purses. Slowly, she walked to a vacant sink, her feet aching in her new shoes, and leaned forwards to turn on the cold tap. Counting the muffled thuds of the bassline outside the door as they echoed in the pit of her stomach, she ran her hands beneath the water and avoided her own gaze in the mirror. The woman next to her, impossibly tall and thin in a burgundy bandage dress that, paired with her glossy black mane of hair, made her look like she had stepped directly from the page of a magazine, glanced sidelong at her._ _

__“You alright, honey?”_ _

__Chloe made sure that a bright smile had lit every part of her expression before she lifted her head and nodded, meeting the woman’s gaze, lined with perfectly applied false eyelashes, in the mirror. She realised, too late, that the lie hadn’t quite reached her eyes. The woman didn’t look convinced, and she glanced down at Chloe’s hands twisting beneath the cold water, but she didn’t ask anything further, following her friends out of the room, balancing effortlessly on her Christian Louboutin pumps. The music surged for a moment as they stepped out into the hall, and then the door swung closed, and it was quiet again._ _

__**That’s the kind of woman a guy wants.** _ _

__It wasn’t Bryce’s voice, but she knew it, immediately._ _

__And she should. It never strayed far._ _

__**Do you think she bought **her** dress from the sale rack? ** _ _

__**And was that fit really such a great idea? Especially after you ate Amelia’s leftovers last night?** _ _

__“Stop it,” she whispered to herself, willing her hands to still, her attempts to force herself to turn off the tap unsuccessful._ _

__**I’m just trying to help you, girl. Hell, your mother doesn’t know shit about pleasing a man. Your daddy sure knew that. So someone’s gotta teach you, right?** _ _

__**Bryce is the best thing that you ever lucked into.** _ _

__**You don’t wanna lose that chance to be someone, do you?** _ _

__**Because you sure as hell don’t deserve it-** _ _

__“Radic, _please_ ,” Chloe hissed, and forced her gaze up to the mirror._ _

__The room was empty. There was a pair of heels beneath one stall door, and a handbag visible beneath another, but no one else stood at the bank of sinks. Just her, trembling, pale faced, in a fitted navy mini-dress, her hair in loose golden curls over her shoulders, the delicate gold necklace from Bryce at her throat and her eyes brimming, threatening to streak eyeliner down her cheeks. Slowly, Chloe withdrew her hands from beneath the water, her skin chilled and knuckles red from the cold, and reached to turn off the tap._ _

__Before he left, his words had been aimed at her mother more frequently than her, but in his absence, she found herself his constant target and powerless to evade it, even though, buried deep enough that she was able to avoid acknowledging it, was the knowledge that, even though the voice was his, and the words were his, recycled and repurposed from years of memory, the intent, the sentiment, the hate, were all hers._ _

__The door swung open behind her, and a poppy dance mix flooded into the room behind a pair of girls teetering drunkenly on unsteady heels. One of them slipped into a stall, while the other came up beside her at the mirrors, catching the reflection of Chloe’s glance at her black designer dress._ _

__“Something the matter, sweetie?”_ _

__Chloe blinked and shook her head quickly, averting her gaze. She resisted the urge to turn the tap on again._ _

__“No. Just a little headache, is all.”_ _

__The girl smiled at her, tipsy and friendly, as she reached for her purse._ _

__“Well, I’m sure I’ll have something in here that’ll take care of that.”_ _

__~_ _

__Monty buttoned the fly of his jeans and headed to the sink. The bathroom was quiet aside from the thumping bass outside the door and the snoring of someone who had fallen asleep in one of the stalls, slumped against the side wall with one shoe dangling out from beneath the door. As he washed his hands, he wondered if he should text Scott. None of them wanted to be here, and Zach was too polite to do anything about it, but Scott he could probably get on board with a tandem plan to irritate Bryce into agreeing to leave. He could suggest that they just order an Uber, but that would leave Chloe with an impossible choice to make, Bryce’s eyes on her – or not, because apparently that was worse and even more effective than openly judging her – while she considered whether or not to leave with them._ _

__The stall door at the end of the row swung open as Monty fished in his pocket for his phone, and he almost dropped it into the sink at the unexpected grasp on his shoulder._ _

__Reflexively, he turned into the contact, one hand shooting out to shove against the chest of the other man a second before he recognised him from the dancefloor._ _

__“Just me,” the man said, smiling, as if they were old acquaintances and he was not simply referring to their eyes meeting over Chloe’s shoulder amongst the thick throng of dancers. He raised his other hand and rested it, calmly, over Monty’s, where it was fisted in the front of his shirt._ _

__“The fuck do you want?” Monty asked, his phone gripped bruisingly tight by his side, instinct screaming at him to shove the man away, to swing that phone right into his face and keep swinging until the screen was shattered and so were his teeth, that this didn’t feel right because it shouldn’t, it couldn’t, but it fucking did._ _

__The hand on Monty’s shoulder shifted to his neck, the man’s touch searing hot at the nape of his neck, the pad of his thumb tracing along the line of his jaw._ _

__“Same as you,” he said, with a tilt of his head. “I think.”_ _

__~_ _

__Chloe stumbled into the hallway outside of the bathroom, still shaking the freezing water from her hands. The thundering music echoed around her so loudly that she couldn’t be sure whether the steady thud at the base of her skull was a headache or simply the bassline. Pausing to straighten the hem of her dress, she headed toward the blue and green lights of the dancefloor._ _

__“Hey.”_ _

__Chloe almost flinched at the grasp on her elbow, turning to look up at Bryce as he leaned in close to her, his grip firm but not enough to hurt, his face near enough to hers that she could smell the top shelf whiskey that laced his amused, lopsided grin._ _

__“Next time you want to try to make me jealous by rubbing up on some other guy, I’d recommend-“ he paused, tilted his head, and pretended to consider. “-just about anyone other than Monty.”_ _

__Bryce winked at her, smiling, and let her go, continuing down the hall to the men’s room as if he didn’t know her at all._ _

__The criticism was intended for her, Chloe knew, and the involuntary sting of having her pathetic need and childish failure pointed out was enough to confirm that it had hit its target. It hurt, but it was a familiar pain, one that she had seen on her mother’s face for years, so that it seemed a perfectly natural part of a relationship – that constant, turbulent oscillation between running at and away from one another, and that chance occurrence when the collisions in between turned out sweet instead of devastating, and made the whole game worth it. And besides, that customary little sting, it was swept aside by a burning so hot that it swallowed the sharp bite of humiliation whole, a flash of fury at the suggestion that Monty wasn’t worth his jealousy, either because Bryce considered the other boy so far beneath him that the idea of envying him anything was preposterous, or because he believed his control to be so absolute that Monty would never begrudge him anything – not even another person, if it was what Bryce wanted._ _

__Hands trembling, Chloe headed back to the table, ignoring the apologies and sidelong looks as she was jostled by the heaving throng of bodies on the dancefloor. **Why are you doing this?** Her skull seemed to vibrate with the question, shrieked over the pounding music, impossible to ignore. Her own voice, this time, or something like it. **You’re smarter than this.** She stumbled from an impact against an enthusiastic dancer, and brushed off their drunken apology as she skirted around them. **You don’t need this.** Her hands were trembling by the time she reached the stairs, and she gripped the rail tightly, trying to calm her breathing. _ _

__Scott and Zach were still sitting at the table, Scott’s face lit in pale white by the screen of his phone, Zach’s gaze hesitant but dark with concern as she stumbled up to them._ _

__**You deserve better than this.** _ _

__Chloe grasped the vodka cranberry in one unsteady hand and, as she raised it, caught a heavy scent of alcohol that hadn’t been there before. For a half second, she hesitated, and into the echoing silence the followed the pleading recriminations, whispered - **No, I fucking don’t** \- and brought the glass to her lips._ _

__“Hey, Chloe?”_ _

__Chloe could feel the ice shivering in the glass in sync with her tremoring hand as she met Zach’s gaze over the rim._ _

__“I hope this isn’t, like, weird, or whatever,” he said, hesitating. Zach’s cheeks flushed pink and his eyes flickered away for a moment, uncertain, and she lowered the glass as his gaze returned to hers. “But I just wanted to tell you, you look really pretty tonight.”_ _

__A tiny, warm light flickered deep in her chest, and Chloe smiled, lowering her eyes._ _

__“Thanks, Zach.”_ _

__~_ _

__Monty heard the impact of a hand raised to push open the bathroom door before it began to swing inwards, and his hands tightened without even giving the action conscious thought, one grasping and shoving the man away by his collar, far enough to give him space to swing the other fist, hard and desperately reckless and still wrapped around his phone, into the base of the man’s throat. The man gagged, doubling over, and stumbled backwards to slump against the stalls as Bryce walked into the room. He raised a questioning but not entirely surprised eyebrow as he looked from the man, who slid into an ungainly, vaguely defensive crouch, to Monty, eyeing the flush of heat beneath his freckles and the way that his hands shook, despite that he clenched them into tight fists._ _

__“What the fuck are you doing?”_ _

__Bryce’s tone was amusement threaded with irritation as he watched the man splutter, trying to catch his breath. A muscle beneath Monty’s ear flickered as his jaw tightened._ _

__“Just trying to wash my fucking hands and dude tried to feel me up from behind,” he said, watching the way that the man’s eyes watered involuntarily, his face pale as Bryce chuckled and stepped around him where he crouched on the wet, messy tiles with disinterest, heading for the urinals._ _

__“Wrong move, friend.”_ _

__Monty glanced after him, uncertain, but Bryce had no further interest in the altercation, his back remaining turned as he unbuttoned his pants. Clutching his phone and not bothering to dry his hands, Monty headed for the door, steadfastly ignoring the stuttering breathing of the man on the floor. He bulldozed through the dancers who stepped into his path, shoving them aside with shoulders and elbows, paying no mind to the chorus of curses and protests that trailed him to the staircase. Chloe was already back at the table with Zach and Scott, who had almost finished the beers he had left._ _

__Monty reached past Chloe for the vodka cranberry on the table by her elbow._ _

__“You gonna drink this?” he asked and, without waiting for an answer, even as Chloe opened her mouth to speak and Scott looked like he might reach for the glass himself, drained it in three mouthfuls. The alcohol burned his throat, far stronger than he had watched the bartender pour when he had ordered it, and he raised the glass to his lips again, tipping an ice cube onto his tongue, which he pushed into his cheek to announce, “I’m going to the bar. Anyone want another?”_ _

__~_ _

__They left by eleven, before security could remove them because Monty alternated between barely able to sit upright and daring strangers who eyed his uncoordinated state to say something about it. He fell asleep in the back of the Rover with his head tilted at an uncomfortable angle against the window, and Scott suggested that Bryce leave Monty with him and Zach when he pulled up outside of the Reed residence. Between them, the two boys manoeuvred Monty out of the car and half-dragged, half-walked him to the house. As they pulled away from the curb, Bryce shook his head._ _

__“Certainly didn’t inherit his old man’s tolerance for alcohol.”_ _

__Chloe bit the inside of her cheek and didn’t respond._ _

__Bryce’s parents’ vehicles were parked in the driveway outside of the house, and Bryce led her away from the main entry, as normal, leading the way to the pool house around back. The stars overhead glinted prettily and the light from the pool cast a soft edged glow over the garden as she followed, the sandals that she had unbuckled in the car dangling by the straps from one hand and the afterglow of whatever had been in the pill she had taken in the club bathroom tingling across her nervous system. She raised her spare hand to shield her eyes when Bryce flicked on the pool house lights and swung the door open, a grin dimpling his cheek as he nodded for her to go ahead of him. Warily, Chloe licked her lower lip and stepped inside._ _

__The beer bottles, crumpled food packets, damp pool towels and playing cards that were normally littered around the space had been tidied away, the smell of bong water, boy’s deodorant and chlorine replaced with the sweet, gentle scent of pink and peach rose petals, scattered across the floor and the coffee table. Two wine glasses stood on either side of a small, black jewellery box, tied with a silver ribbon. Chloe blinked, surprised, and turned toward Bryce, who had slipped in behind her and moved to the fridge behind the bar, where he retrieved a chilled bottle of wine with a smile._ _

__“I don’t understand,” Chloe murmured, looking down at the delicate petals at her feet, the same shade of pink as her DIY pedicure. She shook her head as Bryce crossed to the couch. “I thought… you seemed mad… and I…”_ _

__Bryce offered his trademark, lopsided smile, and beckoned for her to join him. The petals were whisper soft beneath her feet as she walked slowly to sit on the couch beside him. Bryce screwed open the bottle of wine, and leaned over to pour a few mouthfuls into each glass, tipping the bottle overhand like a practiced sommelier._ _

__“I know I was distant tonight,” he admitted with a humble shrug as he set the bottle down, and reached to offer her one of the glasses. “I guess I was just nervous. I really wanted this to go perfectly.”_ _

__Chloe blinked as she accepted the glass. Part of her heard the lie in his voice. Part of her saw the satisfaction in his expression - **Surprise, bitch. I win. Again.** And part of her knew that this was wrong, dangerous, that the jewellery box that he reached for, slipping the ribbon from with careful hands, was not a gift but a bear trap primed to snap around her ankle and imprison her in this gilded cage, baited with the practiced humility in his smile as he prised it gently open and showed her the delicate white gold and pearl floral earrings inside._ _

__“Happy anniversary, babe,” he said, watching her face for her reaction as he asked, “Do you like them?”_ _

__And even though she knew that what he was asking was far more than that, what she was committing to was deeper and darker and more frightening than a beautiful pair of earrings, she smiled at him as she met his gaze._ _

__“Yes.”_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to comfortwriter28 for beta checking this chapter and for the chats :)
> 
> I apologise for the random formatting - limited html is kicking my butt today and I have neither the smarts or patience to fix it.
> 
> Next up is Bryce, and a little step backwards in time to his courting of Chloe. 
> 
> Thanks for reading and commenting <3


	9. Dollar Valentine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before they were Liberty High's dysfunctional star couple - Chloe catches Bryce's eye for the first time.

Bryce didn’t need to spend a fucking dollar to get a date, but he enjoyed Dollar Valentines, anyway.

He liked the change of atmosphere in the hallways at Liberty, the hopeful glances and inviting smiles, the heady mix of lowered guards and cautious interest as students who were normally otherwise preoccupied with study or sports or whatever gossip was circulating that week focussed their attention on each other, all through the rosy lens of lust and opportunity. He didn’t need Valentine’s Day and the lowered inhibitions and opportunistic attitudes it brought out in others – he had his own methods for achieving the same effect – but it was a little amusing to observe guys like Clay Jensen and Tyler Down, kids who wouldn’t have a fucking clue what to do if a girl looked at them, let alone spoke to them, filling out their questionnaires as if this might be their big break; this silly little quiz might somehow turn them into someone’s Prince Charming. 

It also didn’t hurt that, all day on the first of February, there were cheerleaders up on ladders, affixing promotional posters and signs to walls and architraves, shapely legs bare beneath their uniform skirts, in spite of the persisting chill in the air. 

A gentleman to the death, he offered to steady ladders and assess the level hanging of posters and signs, and what cheerleader would decline the assistance of the captain of the football and baseball teams?

“You sure you don’t want your mom to cast an eye over that before you hand it in, Zachy?” Jeff laughed as they sat around the cafeteria table at lunch, filling out their questionnaires. Zach’s cheeks flushed pink even as he rolled his eyes at the predictably themed jibe. Jeff’s smile was bright and good-natured as he nudged Zach’s elbow with his own. “I’m just playing, man. My mom’s the same. You wanna make sure she approves before you bring a girl home, right? Save the poor thing from a grilling.”

Zach shrugged but smiled, taking their shared battle with overprotective mothers in stride. Bryce, whose own mother was currently in Italy with his father, under the pretence of being wooed with romance and magic but probably sitting in a hotel room, drinking and wondering why in the world his father bothered with the expense of an airfare if he was going to spend the entire trip conducting business, offered a crooked grin from the opposite side of the table.

“No need to worry, boys,” he announced, lifting his chin. “Even if Dempsey picks up one of my scraps, he wouldn’t know what to do with her, anyway.”

Jeff’s smile faltered and Zach’s faded completely at the chuckles that erupted around the table. Bolstered by the laughter of the other boys, Bryce slid a sideways glance toward Justin, otherwise quiet as he clucked his tongue.

“Doesn’t this shit make you feel sorta sad?” Justin asked no one in particular, untidily circling numbers from the multiple-choice options. Feeling Bryce’s gaze on him, he looked up, and shrugged. “I mean, I feel like girls take this crap a lot more seriously than we do, you know? They think this is, I don’t know, like, a gateway to a relationship, or something.”

Zach watched him across the table, but apparently wasn’t willing to voice his agreement. Not with Bryce observing him.

“Not _all_ girls,” Alex muttered flatly from the end of the table, his eyes down on his questionnaire, although all he had managed was to write his name on it, his pen hovering over the page for the last fifteen minutes without marking any responses. The dejection in his tone appeared to be taken as sarcasm by the others, or ignored completely – no amount of acidic social commentary or inside tips about where the sheriff’s department would be spot checking for underage drinking or, in Bryce’s opinion, inflated to entirely fabricated comments about his sex-life with Jessica Davis, would win him their acceptance. Bryce heard it, and he could do the math – he could multiply Jessica ditching him over the hot or not list with the objectively unlikely idea that she would have ever fucked him in any event, divide by the regret that rounded his shoulders and dimmed his expression as he sighed and put down his pen, defeated by a personality quiz written by _cheerleaders_ , and come out with the right answer.

Alex was like anyone else at the table. He wanted to be king.

And he never would be.

But that didn’t mean that Bryce couldn’t throw him a bone every once in a while. 

He grinned.

“I bet anyone who gets Hannah Baker will find her DTF.” Bryce gave Justin’s shoulder a playful shove. “Right, Justy?”

Justin said nothing, but Bryce saw the bitten back response in the set of his jaw, and while part of him felt driven to correct the reaction, to remind the other boy who they were, in this place and amongst these people and to each other, he pressed it down. Sometimes, Justin’s sullenness was an attempt to draw a reaction – a below the belt play learned from his junkie mother – and the wisest course of action was always to refuse to acknowledge the pout. Justin would come back to his side, all bright smiles and platitudes, when he realised his wrongdoing. He always did. 

In the meantime, he wasn’t the only one not to offer a laugh in acknowledgement of Bryce’s commentary.

“You want in, Monty?” he asked, loudly and pointedly, and the other boy, sitting beside Jeff on the opposite side of the table, reluctantly lifted his gaze from the screen of his phone. Bryce cocked his chin and offered a wink. “I’ll spot you a dollar if you can’t afford it, buddy.”

Unlike Zach, whose every reaction was painted in hues of pink and red flaring across his cheeks, and Justin, who was powerless to keep every flash of emotion that sparked inside of him from showing in his eyes, even if he managed to wrestle it back from appearing on his face, Monty simply blinked, expressionless, and offered no response. For someone who consistently spent his time disparaging others with jokes and jibes, grinning every time his efforts were rewarded with a reaction, he could be fucking stubborn about giving one himself. It unsettled the others, unsure if they should take his silence as good-natured acceptance or scarcely tamped down fury, and it showed in the smattering of cautious snickering that followed Bryce’s taunt.

Monty was loyal and obedient and Bryce never had to worry about him making an attempt on his territory, but he was still a wild dog brought to heel, and would never offer the domesticated reliability that Justin did. 

Sometimes, it made Bryce wonder why he bothered. 

“He’s good for it,” Jeff interjected on behalf of the other boy, his grin bright with light-hearted teasingly as Monty looked at him. “He’s just going out in solidarity with Ryan Shaver this year. No one’s equal until we all are, right?”

The group of boys guffawed at this, Monty’s homosexual innuendo turned around on him, Jeff’s jokes consistently good-natured and a few safe steps back from truly hurtful, and inside, behind a crooked grin, Bryce seethed. 

Luke, ever affable and perpetually clueless, shook his head.

“I don’t get it, though,” he said, crossing out an answer that he had apparently managed to mark incorrectly, despite that the questionnaire was entirely based on his personal preferences, and circling a different response, the pen in between his fingers dwarfed by his large hand. “Who would Ryan even get on his list, if they let guys get guys?” He looked up with an expression of genuine curiosity. “It’d just be, what, him and Tony Padilla?” He shrugged and suggested, plainly, “They should just, like, date.”

Zach paused, lips parted, debating whether or not to comment. Jeff smiled, equal parts amused and impressed at Luke’s practical and unbiased consideration. A frown creased Alex’s forehead, as he apparently attempted to imagine a date between over-confident, unapologetically flamboyant Ryan and pragmatic, measured Tony. 

“Dude…” Justin muttered, shaking his head, although his cheek dimpled with an amused smile as Jeff and Zach dissolved into giggles. 

Luke looked around at them cluelessly, his question intended with sincerity, and glanced up as Monty, sitting opposite him, climbed to his feet.

“Come on, man,” he cocked his head for Luke to follow as he shouldered his backpack. “We’ve got detention with Mrs Bradley.”

Jeff whistled, nodding.

“Caught you checking out those killer legs of hers, did she?”

Zach and Justin grinned cheekily, looking to the boys for response. Luke appeared simultaneously baffled and embarrassed while Monty’s expression was locked down so tight he could have passed a polygraph test through sheer willpower. And it wasn’t even that he didn’t bite back – although that might have been preferable, at least it would have provided an opportunity for a response that would shove him firmly back into the position where they both knew he belonged - it was his refusal to pay any acknowledgement whatsoever. There were rules in their court, which they all understood without having to write them down or share them aloud, and while failing to make proper offerings wasn’t breaking them, strictly, it skated close enough that the others might get ideas.

Bryce couldn’t abide it. 

“Monty? Nah,” he smiled and it was razor-sharp, absent the amiable charm that softened the edges of Jeff’s gentle taunts as Monty met his gaze. “Coach Rick’s legs, maybe.”

Monty blinked, his expression impassive, but the hint of pink that began to rise beneath his freckles and at the tips of his ears as he turned to leave was enough. Luke, scrambling to shove things into his backpack, almost forgot his questionnaire on the table in his hurry to collect his lunch tray and not be left behind. The other boys fell into silence, and it wasn’t the atmosphere Bryce preferred – no one wanted a dictator for a king – but he would take it. If nothing else, it confirmed that his point had been made. 

“Well, ladies,” he announced with a cocky smile as he stood. “I gotta take a leak before it’s nap time in Coach Patrick’s history class.” He paused to wave a hand at their collective questionnaires, in various states of completion. “Don’t waste too much effort on those. You’re not gonna rate any higher than second place, at best.”

Grinning at their amused smiles, he shouldered his backpack and collected his lunch tray. As he headed for the exit, Bryce counted no less than four questionnaires at each table, students clustered around and debating their answers at some while others completed their responses guardedly, hiding each answer circled with their hand or a textbook. He smiled at every glance turned his way as he passed, earning bright blushes and giggles as he went. Bryce dumped the trash from his tray into the garbage and dropped it onto the pile, then swung out a hand to push open the cafeteria door.

“Oh!”

Bryce felt the door hit something on the other side before he heard the startled exclamation, and stumbled, tugging the door back even as he was halfway through it. On the other side, a petite blonde in a Liberty cheerleading uniform bit her lower lip and cradled the fingers of one hand in the other, her eyes bright with pain and her cheeks turning pink with embarrassment when she looked up and met his gaze.

“Shit! Sorry,” Bryce offered a bright smile even as he turned to follow the girl’s gaze to the Dollar Valentine poster stuck to the exterior of the large glass window in the door, the top left corner curling downwards where the tape had come loose. He reached to secure the tape, casting a look over his shoulder. “They should really put windows in these doors, huh?”

The girl smiled, looking down at her hands. Bryce knew he had seen her before – definitely at football and baseball games, with the rest of the squad, but flicking through his memory, he located a few other images – her narrow waist in a pink floral dress while she gave a presentation in Biology with a bored and pouting Angie Romero, an appreciable rear view when he was called to the office and she was standing at the desk in a little shorts and sweater combo waiting while the administrator made her photocopies of cheer practice schedules, tanned legs beneath a white summer frock chatting with Sherri and Justin by the pool at the first party he had thrown last summer. He couldn’t think of an occasion where they had exchanged more than a greeting at a party and, taking in the loose blonde waves that she brushed back from her face anxiously and her hesitant, uncertain smile, he couldn’t resist the urge to change that. 

“It’s Claire, right?” he guessed. It was wrong, he knew, but as good an excuse as any to continue the conversation. 

“Chloe,” she corrected, politely, tucking her hair behind her ear. Her knuckles, where they had impacted the wood panelling as she had reached to correct the poster at the same time that he swung the door open, were red and swelling, but not bleeding. 

“Chloe. Right. Right,” Bryce shook his head apologetically. “I’ve seen you at parties at my house, haven’t I? With Sheri and the girls?”

Chloe shrugged beneath her Liberty windbreaker.

“I guess. Once or twice.”

She appeared embarrassed at the thought that she had been noticed.

Perfect.

“We should go out for a drink sometime.”

Bryce unfurled a charming smile, satisfied that he had hit the mark when her expression shifted from wide eyed surprise to blushing humility. Normally, he liked girls to be forward enough that they wouldn’t be afraid to experiment in the bedroom, confident enough to carry the attention that came with standing at his side, and pretty enough to make their peers jealous – boys and girls alike – but he wasn’t afraid of a challenge, and one out of three wasn’t a terrible place to start.

“Think about it,” he suggested and, with a wink, left her to do just that. 

~

“What do you think of Bryce?”

Monty appeared startled at the question, his hands going still halfway through unwrapping the plastic wrap she had secured neatly around the corned beef sandwiches she had packed that morning. The sunlight filtering through the foliage that encircled the waterhole flickered over his freckles and lightened his eyes to hazel, so that he almost looked like that six-year-old boy who had joined her tea party beneath the tree in her front yard, and not the sixteen-year-old thug he had since developed the unshakeable reputation of. Realising his unexpected reaction as it was reflected back at him through her expression, he blinked and shook his head, returning his attention to the sandwich. 

“What do you mean?” he asked, tone deliberately casual as he picked loose the tidy folds of plastic wrapping. 

Chloe shrugged, regretting not just asking the question over text, or waiting until the next time he tapped at her bedroom window. Since her mother’s separation, her need to escape what had often felt more like a dungeon than her home had faded, from almost every other night in the last few months as the marriage strained further and further toward breaking point beneath the weight of the escalating conflict between her mother and stepfather, to suddenly nothing, to actually feeling like she could breathe, and that the place she should be was with her sister and her mother, stitching together what was left of her family the best she could. That should have been a relief – and it was, for certain – but it also shifted the dynamic between her and Monty. Her sudden absence of need made his feel selfish, burdensome and one-sided in comparison, and although _she_ didn’t feel that way – and didn’t want him to, either – it was obvious in the bruises that he wore to school that he normally would have brought to her first, or avoided altogether by escaping over the fence, in the past. Even now, there was a broken blood vessel in his left eye and scratches and fingerprint bruises edging his temple and jaw that hadn’t been there on Friday. 

“We just sort of ran into each other last week,” Chloe answered lightly, picking at the crust of her own sandwich. “We usually barely even say ‘hi’ at his parties. I didn’t think he really even knew who I was.”

Monty made a noise that sounded like a scoff, but when she glanced up at him to gauge his expression, his gaze was on the water below them as he chewed a large mouthful of his sandwich. 

“He asked me if I wanted to get a drink with him sometime,” Chloe continued, scratching mustard seeds from the neatly cut edges of her sandwich. She looked up at him through her eyelashes, studying his profile. It was tense, but it almost always was these days, constantly coiled and prepared to launch into an attack, even in the most mundane circumstances, the skinny kid with the goofy skateboard stance buried beneath layers of armour and scar tissue. She lifted her shoulder in a casual shrug. “But I won’t go if you don’t want me to.”

Monty frowned, casting her a sidelong look. 

“Why?” he asked around a mouthful of sandwich, rolling his eyes when she cocked an eyebrow at him like an unimpressed parent. He chewed quickly and swallowed before continuing. “The fuck’s it got to do with me?”

_Everything_ she wanted to scream at him.

For over a decade, everything in her life had had something to do with him, and her in his. For years, he had been the only person in the world who knew everything about her, who she had no secrets from, who she trusted fully and implicitly. He was the one who protected and comforted her, who wouldn’t allow any harm to befall her that he could prevent, and who she offered the same in return. He was the one that she couldn’t live without, her best friend, the two of them against the world, and it wasn’t that he had stepped over that line – had joined the world against her, and left her alone – because he wouldn’t ever do that. It was entirely the opposite. She felt as though he was pushing her toward the line instead, urging her, through distance and silence where they had once been so open and close that it almost felt as though they existed as one person, to leave him and join the rest of the world. 

And the worst part was, it was her fault, and he didn’t even know it. 

She let him do it, push her away, because she deserved it. 

Even now, as Monty cast an incredulous look in her direction, the words clawed their way into Chloe’s throat, heavy and sharp, and lodged there, where they always did, where they had for years, trapped and unspoken.

_I know what happened._

_I was scared, and I didn’t know what to do._

_I’m sorry._

Chloe swallowed hard against nothing, and shrugged lightly.

“It’s just that he’s your friend,” she offered, and made an effort to smile, hoping to dent his impassive, guarded expression. “I mean, you’d talk to me before you asked out one of my friends, right?”

It took a moment, but finally his cheek dimpled and Monty shook his head.

“Just what I need in my life. A fucking cheerleader who thinks she should be wined and dined like royalty.”

Chloe gasped in mock affront.

“Should I take that to mean you _haven’t_ purchased a Dollar Valentine?” she asked, with exaggerated accusation. “All funds raised go to a good cause, you know?”

Monty laughed outright at this, and Chloe couldn’t help but smile. He had been a serious kid, even when they were small, but she had always loved his smile, rare and often unexpected, even more so in recent years, as he seemed to restrict himself to that silly, shit-eating grin that boys wore when they exchanged childish taunts, any honest joy hidden or numb or, she sometimes feared, altogether dead. He shook his head, and deliberately took a large bite of the sandwich she had made before turning to her and speaking around it, grinning at her unimpressed expression.

“If I pay you two dollars now, will you promise to cancel the event next year?”

Chloe reached over to shove his shoulder, smiling.

“No,” she said. “But if you don’t chew your food before you speak, I promise to push you in the water and you can walk back in wet shoes.”

He grinned, but toed off his shoes and set them aside, just in case.

Looking down at the sunlight reflecting on the water, they ate their sandwiches, and neither of them brought up the topic of Bryce again. 

~

The line at Sheri’s station was the longest, and even though he had sworn off her – she wasn’t worth his time or effort – it pissed Bryce off. He had planned to hand his Dollar Valentine questionnaire to her, because the way he saw it, it was win/win. Either she processed his answers and gave him his list of matches, and she wasn’t on it – which she frankly didn’t deserve to be – or, alternatively, she _was_ , and he thought maybe that would be even better because, although he didn’t need the list to get her number, pointedly _not_ calling her, after whatever stupid, two-bit program they had developed had matched them together, would sting all the more sweetly. 

It was petty, maybe, but he was OK with being petty every once in a while.

He wasn’t OK with lining up behind ten other bozos to do it. 

While Monty and Jeff waited in the bleachers with Zach, who had secretly brought his questionnaire in first thing in the morning, hiding away his matches like a little bitch and refusing to share them with any of the guys, Justin, Luke, and Ramon dispersed to various stations manned by cheerleaders with laptops, wireless printers and cutesy cupid headbands. The gymnasium was filled to the brim with pink and red poster paper, love-heart garlands, sequins and glitter. It was kitschy and stupid but, Bryce decided, spotting a pretty blonde who watched Justin skirt around her empty station to slide into the chair opposite Jessica Davis, not a total waste of time.

“Hey,” Bryce stepped closer to Marcus, who was standing on the edge of the basketball court, pointing out yearbook photo opportunities to Tyler Down, who looked frustrated to have his artistic freedom impinged upon, but lifted his camera to snap a few pictures, anyway. Bryce nodded at the blonde cheerleader, who bit the inside of her lip as sophomore passed her to take a seat at the next station. “What do you hear about Chloe Rice?”

Marcus cocked an eyebrow.

“What do I hear, or what do I know?”

Bryce shrugged. What the fuck did he care?

“I have AP Photography with Chloe,” Tyler offered, unprompted, as he lifted the camera to take a picture of Chloe straightening her laptop and the stack of bubblegum pink paper beside her printer as an excuse to busy her hands. “Her portraits are a little contrived, but she’s good with candids. Seeing people the way they really are, you know?”

In the silence that followed, Tyler glanced sidelong at Bryce and Marcus and, without having to be told, took his opinions and camera to the other side of the gym. 

“Anyway,” Marcus drawled, rolling his eyes. “Chloe Rice.” He smirked, casting Bryce a sidelong look. “I hear she’s down, man. Wants to be liked, wants to be popular,” he shrugged. “Don’t let those pretty outfits and pearls fool you. She’s not that girl. She just wants to be.”

Bryce smiled and nodded.

That, he could work with.

With a pat on the shoulder in thanks, he left Marcus to observe the students milling between stations and made a casual beeline for Chloe. 

“Hey.”

Chloe looked up at him, startled, and an anxious pink immediately flushed her cheeks.

“Oh, hey. Again.”

He slid into the seat opposite her casually, watching the way that she sat back in her seat, creating a little bit more distance between them. She glanced around the gymnasium rather than meet his gaze directly, her blue eyes flicking over Justin and Jessica as they laughed loudly off to the right, and then circled left, to the bleachers, before settling on the folded sheet of red paper that he slid from the pocket of his varsity jacket.

“I didn’t think you would be the type to go in for something like this,” she commented offhandedly as she accepted the questionnaire, laying it out on the table and pressing flat the folds. She glanced up at him over the screen of the laptop as she typed in his responses. “Surely Bryce Walker doesn’t need a Dollar Valentine to get a girl’s number?”

Bryce chuckled good-naturedly. So, she was a little more forward than he had assessed, after all. This was shaping up better than he might have hoped. 

“Hey, I’m always up for supporting a good cause,” he offered, and it was her turn to chuckle with disbelief as she clicked a few buttons and the printer beside her hummed to life. The paper stuttered through the feeder, **Bryce W.** stamped at the top in bold black font. Without looking at his matches, Chloe slid the paper free, and handed it to him, smiling politely.

“There you go.”

Bryce looked down at his matches. No Sheri. Well, just as well he didn’t bother waiting for her station to be free. Hannah Baker at number one. Interesting. He cocked an eyebrow.

“I thought maybe I’d get lucky and get your number,” he said with a crooked smile, meeting her eyes directly. He half expected her to look away, embarrassed, but she held his gaze, although she bit the inside of her cheek for a moment while she considered her response. 

“Oh well,” she shrugged, finally, her smile friendly but guarded. “Better luck next time, I guess.”

Bryce smirked. 

He didn’t need luck to get what he wanted.

~

Justin lay upside down on the couch in the pool house, his knees slung over the backrest and his head dangling as he reached for the bag of corn chips on the table, missing the opening twice before managing to aim his hand inside and grab a handful, which he fed into his mouth while his other hand was busy resetting the racing game they had been playing all afternoon.

“What do you know about Chloe Rice?” Bryce asked from the bar, where he refilled their cups with bourbon and cola, pouring heavy on the liquor and topping up the last finger or two with soft drink. On the television screen, a countdown blinked to signal the start of a new race. 

“Nothing much, man,” Justin said, tilting his head in the direction that he attempted to aim his car on the screen. “She’s in all the smart classes. Only one I have with her is Communications. She seems nice. Clever.” 

Bryce contemplated this as he returned with their drinks, setting Justin’s further away than he could reach without sitting up, to dissuade him from attempting, stoned and buzzed as he was, to drink it upside down. He sank into the armchair and considered. Justin’s comments aligned with what he had already been able to find out about the girl. She was clever, but didn’t brag about it like Courtney Crimson. She was a cheerleader, but wasn’t popular on the same level that someone like Sheri was. People said that she was sweet and kind and friendly, but they said other things, too. That she was guarded and protective, especially of her personal life. She had a little sister in elementary school, but he hadn’t been able to find anyone who had ever been to her house, or even knew where she lived. No one who could comment on her background or her family or who she was outside of the hallways of Liberty High. 

Justin sucked on his teeth, frustrated, as his car ran into a barrier on a sharp turn. 

“She lives down the bottom of that big-ass hill, like, right behind Monty’s house.”

Bryce blinked.

_What?_

He had been subtly fishing for information over the last two weeks following Valentine’s Day, allowing Marcus’s idiotic, heavy-handed attempt on Hannah Baker’s virtue to distract from his carefully placed questions, and Monty had never said a fucking word. 

Bryce frowned, leaning forwards to peer at Justin. 

“How do you know that?”

Justin blinked, hesitating, and shrugged, his foggy mind slowing his reactions so that his attempt to dismiss his comment was obvious.

“I don’t know. I guess he mentioned it, once,” he muttered lamely, fidgeting with the gaming controller. “I catch a ride with him to school, sometimes.”

Bryce already knew that, and despite that it was a source of mild frustration – he didn’t want either of them to get the idea that they could support each other any more effectively than he could – the benefits outweighed the risk. Monty and Justin were rivals, by his choice, and while that suited his goals, a total inability for them to get along for the greater good – specifically, for _him_ \- was counterproductive. 

They could tolerate each other, and he would allow that, but no more. 

Bryce saw the offering of information – Justin’s admission that he occasionally asked Monty for a ride to school instead of reaching out to Bryce – for what it was. An attempt to deflect his attention from his accidental revelation that, far from knowing nothing at all about Chloe, which his silence suggested, Monty shared a fence with her, and chose not to disclose it. 

Bryce frowned, considering. 

“You know, I’m pretty sure she runs a study group,” Justin offered, eyeing Bryce surreptitiously to gauge his reaction. He waited until the other boy met his gaze before rolling over to prop himself on one elbow, the game on the television lost and finished. “I know Zach goes for History. I’m pretty sure he said she set it up.”

Bryce nodded slowly, reflecting on this new information. Clearly, he had given Monty too much freedom, if he thought he was entitled to keep him from things that he wanted. And that would need addressing. But perhaps, there was a way to achieve that end in the same action that secured him Chloe’s number. 

If Monty’s aim was to keep Chloe from him, for whatever reason - Bryce could only assume some stupid, unrequited crush on his pretty blonde neighbour – and if he was willing to defy Bryce’s will to do it, then he needed to be reminded of his place.

Bryce would get that fucking number – without Monty, to spite him – and when he did, he would shove it in his face so hard that the other boy would be sorry he ever thought to creep out of his cage. 

Bryce took a drink, letting the details of his plan settle in the back of his mind, and sat forwards to return his cup to the coffee table. Justin, twisted halfway around on the couch, looked torn between reaching for his drink, the bong, and shovelling another handful of corn chips into his mouth, with only one hand to apply to it. Bryce made the decision easier for him.

“C’mon, man,” he said, holding his hand out for the controller. “My turn.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope everyone is keeping safe and well in these crazy times! 
> 
> I'm sorry this update has taken so long. It's a combination of baby brain, writer's block and working from home since our office closed to all non-essential staff which, far from giving me more time by cutting out the commute or the need to brush my hair or put on makeup, seems to take up far more of my days with work stuff!
> 
> I apologise, belatedly, for Bryce being so dreadfully Bryce.
> 
> If it's any consolation, I have written the next chapter, it has been beta-checked, and I should get it up sometime in the next week or so. 
> 
> Thanks to comfortwriter28 for all of your help, very much appreciated as always!
> 
> And thank you for reading and commenting <3


	10. Rover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An opposite perspective on the hit and run attempt on Clay in season 2.

Chloe threw open the pool house door and immediately, the boys at the table outside attempted to busy their hands and divert their attention, as if she might be convinced that they hadn’t been listening to her and Bryce argue for the last half hour. Zach was suddenly very interested in the ingredients listed on the peeling label of his beer bottle, Scott flicked his thumbnail over the ridges of a bottle cap, and Monty stared down at his phone. 

“Could one of you give me a ride home, please?”

She felt the stiffness in her tone, and although she felt rude for not disguising it more thoroughly, couldn’t quite manage to shift the lump in her throat in order to achieve it. For a moment, none of them moved, and with Scott relying on his bike – currently tipped on its side on the grassed area by the Walker’s pool – for transport, the request was left to Zach and Monty and, really, she was only asking one of them.

“Sorry, Chloe,” Zach offered, his tone genuinely apologetic as he cast an awkward look toward the pool house door. “Bryce parked everyone in.”

Chloe felt her lower lip quiver involuntarily in the moment that Monty glanced up at her, and the boy thumbed the power button of his phone to engage the lock screen as he stood. 

Leaving his own keys on the table, he skirted around her to the pool house door, walking in without knocking. Bryce was slouched on the couch, a beer in one hand and his phone in the other, playing some sort of hardcore porn video, which Bryce scowled at, not even glancing up when Monty leaned over to scoop up the keys to the Rover from the coffee table next to his propped-up sneakers. Monty made a point not to look at the other boy, trying to ignore the sound of exaggerated moans and breathy squeals as he headed back outside. 

No doubt, Bryce would have something to say about all of this – the argument, Chloe, taking his car, her insolence, his disloyalty, anything else he thought to add to the list - when Monty got back. Or maybe not. Sometimes, when he was in a foul mood like he had been for the last few days since the trial had started, he locked down hard and tight, inflicting a punishing silence on all of them, leaving them all wondering whether it was better to maintain the quiet or attempt to ease it, because whichever option they chose, it would be invariably incorrect. 

Chloe offered the other boys a small wave as she turned to follow Monty along the path around the side of the house to the driveway. Bryce’s Range Rover was parked at a careless angle behind the Audi and the Jeep, the windows left partway down, because who was going to rifle in the pockets or glove box in a moment of opportunistic pilfering in this neighbourhood? The blinkers flashed as Monty disarmed the security system, and they climbed inside.

Neither spoke as he reversed the Rover out into the quiet street and headed out of the suburb. 

The trial was two days in, and nothing they had attempted so far had made much of a difference. Tyler had testified anyway – and that was OK, he didn’t _know_ anything, not really – but it also wasn’t OK, because _fuck him_ , and they had both made sure that he couldn’t ignore _that_ message, the photography lab smashed into irreparable pieces and the creepy little perv’s attention diverted to the fact that he was no longer allowed to photograph female sports, which apparently had been taken as some sort of affront and attributed as a response on behalf of the school to his testimony, Chloe’s subtly tearful complaint about him loitering around cheer practice perfectly received by Mr Kurtz. 

Whether or not their plans for Jessica, still in motion but running to schedule, would be more effective remained to be seen, and the tension of the unknown wore on both of them. Jessica was easily the most important witness listed to testify – the one with the most power to swing the light of accusation away from Liberty and onto Bryce, onto all of them by association – and that made her the most dangerous. Chloe was hesitant – their heavy-handed approach to Tyler hadn’t been successful; it was hard to gauge whether the same direct application would affect Jessica differently. While Monty stopped by the girl’s locker on his way out of the photography lab the night before and propped his practice baseball bat against his leg, dinged and dented but faring far better than the equipment it had battered, as he folded the scrawled note in three and slid it through the gap at the top edge of Jessica’s locker door, Chloe took the subtle approach. It made her feel a little queasy to do it; it required carefully chosen words, precisely crafted expressions and close proximity, close enough to see the hurt and disbelief on the other girl’s face as she deliberately fumbled an attempt to clear the air between them. 

She thought it was working, but she couldn’t be sure. At lunch, they had spotted Jessica and Alex Standall talking in low, urgent voices, and while Chloe had tried to ignore it, to smile and chat as Bryce sulked between them, Monty had observed the pair more openly, his jaw set with frustration. 

Courtney Crimson had been one of the names that Tom hadn’t been able to remember when he had shared his gossip about the Baker trial with her mother, and Chloe didn’t think it was too concerning – Courtney knew even less about Bryce or any of them than Tyler had, and her testimony never turned in that direction – but it highlighted the fact that without a complete list of witnesses, they might miss a more important target. Tom was nice enough, but not so clueless that he would give up that information without suspicion, if he even knew it. Summons had been issued, they knew that much, but it was impossible to know to who, other than the fact that, thankfully, neither of them had received one. There seemed to be no discernible pattern, no obvious link between the people who had been called to testify – why Courtney, or Tyler, but not kids like Tony Padilla, or Clay Jensen, who were arguably closer to Hannah before her death?

Or had they been called, and just refused to admit it?

Like Bryce.

Chloe hadn’t intended to accuse him of lying – hadn’t even used those words when he answered her casual question about whether or not he had received a summons with outright denial – but apparently, she hadn’t been adept enough at keeping the disappointment and disbelief from registering in her expression. He had already been quiet most of the day, distracted and disinterested, but her neglect to immediately accept his lie had tipped his foul mood into sullen fury, his pale blue eyes going dark and sharp as he accused her of gossiping about him to her friends. Her protests that she asked so that she could help, share the burden somehow, offer him support, if he would let her, only made him angrier. 

_Just what in the fuck did she think she could offer him that he didn’t already have?_

He refused to be soothed back to calmness, shoving her hands away when she attempted to touch him, and as he clicked open the **Pornhub** app on his phone while she sat beside him, she had to wonder:

_Why were they doing this?_

Only two nights ago, it had seemed obvious. Bryce was like oxygen. If this trial took him down, if he was torn from their atmosphere, they would suffocate without him. 

But was that even true?

Chloe tried to picture what her life had been like before him, and it felt like a million years ago. It hadn’t seemed so at the time, but everything had been uncomplicated then, or at least, far less complex that it was now, everything strung together with tiny, invisible threads of his making, everything fragile and liable to shatter around her with a single misstep. Sometimes, she felt like she was trapped in a maze, and she tried to keep her left hand on the wall, giving herself a path to follow back if she came upon a dead end or lost her way, but she could hear the minotaur nearby, and it frightened her to trembling, because she couldn’t remember, sometimes, if she would find Bryce and the shelter of his protection at the centre of the maze, or if he _was_ the beast, driving her deeper into the trap, until any hope of escape was lost. 

Chloe realised that she had been unconsciously twisting her hands tightly together when the sudden shudder of uneven terrain beneath the Rover’s tyres jolted her from her thoughts. She blinked in the dark, glancing around, as Monty swung the wheel to the left, bumping over the dirt at the edge of the road as he doubled back the way they had come. 

“What is it?” she asked, casting him a sidelong look. His jaw was set hard, and he didn’t answer, if he had heard the question at all, his attention focussed forwards. 

Chloe followed his line of sight as the Rover’s engine growled, shuddering at the gas pedal grinding downwards. Even as the sudden inertia pressed her back into her seat, Chloe spotted the figure on the bicycle ahead.

“What are you doing?” she asked, fright threading into her voice and, when Monty neither answered nor slowed down, with an edge of shrillness as terror gripped her, “Monty!”

Chloe guessed it happened in the space of around two seconds, but it felt like an eternity. Clay turned a surprised look over his shoulder, his face cast bright white in the headlights, and pumped his legs faster, as if he thought, panic overriding reason, that he might outrun a speeding car. Monty’s forehead creased in a frown, and his grip tightened on the steering wheel, turning his knuckles white. With one hand, she grasped his elbow, and he didn’t try to shake her off, but he didn’t allow her to shove him off course, either, ploughing forwards as the bicycle and the boy tumbled over the top of a barricade. Finally, as the Rover’s front bumper emitted a metallic shriek as it scraped along the concrete barrier, Monty’s elbow gave, and Chloe shoved his arm to the left, reaching with her other hand to yank the wheel around and force the Rover back onto the road, the tyres wandering with a sharp squeal at the sudden correction. With nothing more than a blink, Monty righted their trajectory and continued on, his gaze never straying to the rear-view mirrors. 

“What the _fuck_?” Chloe demanded, craning her head back for any sign of the other boy, even as they rounded the bend and her view was obstructed by trees and darkness. When he didn’t answer her, she allowed the insistent thud of her adrenalin-amplified pulse, thundering in her ears and her throat, to find rhythm in her trembling fist, which she pounded into his arm as hard as she could to punctuate each word. “ _What. The. Fuck!?_ ”

On the third blow, he winced – an expression of frustration, nothing she was capable of inflicting could scratch the surface of his tolerance for physical abuse – and turned a look toward her, eyes narrowed, but offered no explanation.

“What in the fuck were you trying to do?” Chloe insisted, her rapid heartbeat continuing to flutter in her throat even as Monty eased off of the accelerator and slowed to take the next corner

“Scare him,” Monty offered blandly, with an infuriatingly simple shrug. “Isn’t that what we’re doing?”

Chloe shook her head. Maybe it wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth, either, and if she was going to have to try to go to sleep that night with the image of terror painted over the other boy’s face, a literal deer in the headlights projected behind her eyelids, she was at least going to understand why. 

“He’s not even on the witness list,” she protested, and he scoffed.

“So fucking what?” Monty snapped back, making a right to skirt around the edge of the suburbs, a winding, out-of-the-way route that they normally only took when the sheriff’s department had set up random breath testing stations along the main road. Looking at him sidelong, taking in the flush beneath his freckles and the way that his gaze roamed over the dark street ahead of them, unsettled, Chloe realised that she had no idea how much he had had to drink before she had asked for a ride home. 

“So what in the hell is the use in almost killing someone who has no input into the trial anyway?”

Monty frowned at her, and she recognised the look reflected in dozens of memories spanning the years between them – it was the look that he gave her on the rare occasion when she faltered, when she was not easily the smartest of the two of them, not only intelligent beyond their peers, but clever and practical as well, when she was tired and unfocussed and normally would have shrugged off her nonsensical question off as a ‘blonde moment’. 

“You know it’s his mom’s law firm that’s defending the school, right?” he asked, needlessly, because of course she knew that. “That’s the whole reason they won’t let him fucking testify. But what does that matter, if he’s running the whole thing-“

“Clay Jensen?” Chloe reminded him, her expression a mask of disbelief. “ _Clay Jensen_ is ringleading this?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Monty insisted, ignoring the shade of sarcasm in her tone. “Don’t you see him around? Talking with fucking Tyler Down all the time.” Chloe wasn’t surprised that this bothered him, but was a little startled when he didn’t dwell on it, much more concerned as he added, “And today, with Standall. Right out in the fucking hallway, arguing about how they’re going to get themselves on the witness list.” He clicked his tongue, shaking his head. “You know it only takes one of them to get through and we’re fucked, right?”

Chloe considered, quietly. Alex had definitely been close enough to Bryce, to all of them, to know more than she was comfortable with. And in the weeks leading up to his suicide attempt, although he had continued to orbit the group as he always had – not quite on the outer but not quite one of them, either – it was different. He had been sharper than normal, sarcastic and angry, unforgiving and edgy. He and Monty had never been friendly – they had barely even bothered to tolerate each other outside of video game marathons – but their fight on the edge of school grounds had been a marker. It wasn’t clear whose side Alex was on, exactly, but for certain, it wasn’t theirs. 

It felt cruel to think it, but she wondered how trustworthy a person’s memory might be considered, by a reasonable judge or jury, following a traumatic brain injury. 

Clay was another facet altogether. Quiet and unobtrusive, easy to forget or overlook, but undeniably clever and capable, although she struggled with the idea of him coordinating any sort of joint effort amongst the witness list as they knew it, the way that Monty suggested. Clay Jensen, colluding with Jessica Davis? Zach? And for what gain? Sure, he had lost control of himself in the weeks after Hannah Baker died, shouting in the hallways, disrupting basketball games, vandalising Zach’s car, but he had always been a little bit awkward, slightly strange and not quite connected to the rest of them, and the escalation of behaviour didn’t make any sense to her, or seem to flow in any logical way into a coordinated, behind the scenes effort to push the trial in any specific direction. Even considered through the frame of the boy having cared about Hannah – and she didn’t know if that was the case, she didn’t know him at all - what could he hope to achieve, by manipulating the input into the trial? What did he have against the school? What reason did he have to raise a crusade against Bryce?

And what reason did they have to try to stop him?

“Why are we doing this?”

She hadn’t meant to, but the question came out as a whisper, and she wasn’t sure that Monty had heard until he turned a questioning glance in her direction.

_Why are we doing this?_

Monty frowned at her question. 

It was on the tip of his tongue to answer “because you fucking said we should.” It would have been simpler than trying to articulate the actual reasons why, a list with such length and breadth that he could have spoken to it for hours without even scratching the surface.

The practical reasons were easier. 

Because Bryce offered physical protection – not in the manner of standing in between him and his father after a skinful, but in terms of having a place to go where he could lick his wounds afterwards, or avoid them altogether, if he was quick enough or perceptive enough to read the warning signs and get out of there. And so what, if it cost him the humiliation of satisfying the other boy’s curiosity – _show me. What did it feel like? Was that his fist or his boot?_ – it was still better than the alternatives. 

And it wasn’t even just protection from having to go home. It was protection from himself. Bryce was the only one with the confidence, the self-assurance, the level of control required to yank him back from the edge of his own self-control, to curtail his instinct for violence before it got hold of him and he was powerless to stop himself. The one who mapped the boundaries for him in a way his father never had – _this is where you stop talking because you sound like a fucking idiot, over here is where you back down before you make me look bad, here is the tipping point between friendly banter and cruelty, and this line here, this faint one, this is as far as you go with girls who respect themselves. Do what I say and not what I do._

Once upon a time, he had Chloe for that, but that was a memory and maybe that’s all it could ever be, now. She didn’t – couldn’t – know what it was like to be a guy, an athlete, someone with a reputation to uphold at Liberty High that wasn’t his own, because that’s what Bryce really expected of them – to reflect any light that shone on them toward him, in flattering tribute. And wasn’t that a small price to pay, for what they received in return?

Because Bryce _was_ the Liberty Tigers. Without him, without his acceptance and grace, there was no place for Monty on the football team or the baseball team, and probably, if he wanted to, Bryce had the influence to get him dropped from the wrestling program as well. His parents sponsored their meets, after all. And even if he didn’t – even if he didn’t have the power he projected and Monty suspected – even if he couldn’t get him removed from the teams, at the least, Bryce had the ability to make his position so untenable that he would wish he had been cut. Monty wasn’t the best sportsman on any of the teams he signed up to – that was almost always Zach. He earned his place with a drive and a dedication and a fearlessness that the other boys didn’t have. But it wouldn’t even take a word – just a look from Bryce, and he would be on the outer, and if the other boys refused to accept him, it didn’t matter what the coaches said or did. He had seen it done - had been on the opposite side of it, wielding silence and exclusion like weapons until Bryce got his way and teammates who had wronged him realised it was preferable to slink away safely than to persist. Sometimes, it made him feel sick, but mostly, he figured it was better someone else than him. 

Without sport, without a chance at state, at being scouted by a college, there was nothing left. No hope. No reason to continue. Without sport, he may as well drop out and get on with working full time for his dad. Get on with the drinking and the violence. Get on with becoming the person who hated him, and who he hated back, although not as much as he hated himself. 

Without those teams – without those other boys – without Bryce – all he had was hate and pain in a little green house at the bottom of the hill.

The emotional reasons were even harder.

Friends protected friends, right? How could he call himself Bryce’s friend if he didn’t do whatever he could to stop something bad from happening to him, if he had the power to do so? How could he be Bryce’s friend if he didn’t at least try? Bryce would do the same for him. They were brothers. It didn’t matter what they did – they would always be there for each other. And even if Bryce wasn’t _always_ there – even when Monty blundered over those lines that Bryce had patiently explained, time and time again – so far that Bryce turned away and refused to guide him back, it was temporary. He could never be sure how long he would be cast out, it was a thing measured each time on the circumstances and the whim of Bryce, and sometimes he bumped into the sharp edges of the other boy’s rejection a couple of times before he found the door open again, but even in that time on the outside, in the cold and isolation that he had sometimes forgot he had inhabited before he had come to reside in the orbit of Bryce Walker, he could be certain that he would be allowed back. Bryce was his friend – he would always let him back in.

And he loved Bryce. 

He thought he did, anyway. He wasn’t sure that he understood what love was or what it felt like. Was love the way that his mother had looked at him when he was small? Because she didn’t look at him like that anymore, and he couldn’t remember exactly when that had changed, but he suspected – feared – that it was that whispered, halting conversation at her vanity table, one shaking hand resting by the simple, painted box that held her grandmother’s jewellery, terrified because it had been years since he had been allowed in his parents’ bedroom, and tears rolling down his cheeks uncontrolled, because even though he had to say it – he had to tell her, tell someone – giving voice to the words was tearing him apart. 

Was love what he felt for Chloe? Like she was a part of him living outside of his body, outside of his control, free to leave and to hurt him, a part so precious and essential to him that he would probably die without it, or at least wish he could? 

Then, there was the debt. A ledger thick and well-thumbed, the pages so full that there were notes scribbled in the margins, on the inside covers, the writing scrawled smaller and smaller as it went to make sure everything fit. There was nothing that he could do that would be too much – nothing that would be enough to repay what Bryce had given him – things that no one else in his life had ever had the means or the desire to provide. 

Why was he doing this?

Because _not_ doing it wasn’t an option.

“For Bryce,” was all he offered, eventually. And when Chloe looked at him, her expression full of uncertainty, he shrugged. “Right?”

Chloe bit her lip.

That was the easy answer. The one that she told herself. The tidy box that she swept all of the other, more difficult answers into. Because it wasn’t really about Bryce. Not all of it, not for her, and she suspected, maybe, not for Monty, either.

It was for what had already been cracked, two years before that first day of freshman year, but had crumbled apart in their hands that morning, leaving them both now standing with palms full of sharp and uneven pieces, uncertain that tiny slivers and shards integral to the structure weren’t missing, but trying to put it back together, anyway. 

And all it had taken was a shake of her head.

She had agonised over her outfit for weeks, determined that high school would be her fresh start, carefully matching the pretty floral dress, a thrift store find that fit her perfectly, with a new pair of shoes that they couldn’t really afford but her mother eventually gave in to her begging to purchase for her. She wouldn’t be that clever girl, sweet but tomboyish, ambitious but held back by circumstance. She wouldn’t be the girl whose father tossed her aside, whose mother replaced her with a half-sister, whose grades would never overcome her address or her broken family. She got up early to style her hair and pack her books into her new backpack, and had almost been out the front door when she stepped on the tripwire of an uninvited comment, offered from the hallway behind her. 

**Well, don’t you look like a lamb?**

Chloe had been uncertain if the implication was that she was mutton, or a wolf attempting a feeble disguise to fit in, or both, but she hadn’t turned around, unwilling to witness the expression on his face, and the sting of her stepfather’s words had wrapped around her insides like razor-wire and stuck with her on the bus ride to school. 

Despite that she had been gritting her teeth to keep from dissolving into tears at her own frustration and disappointment – it had been stupid to think that she could pass herself off as anything other than exactly what she was – her shattered confidence had been given a reprieve when, after first period, a couple of girls from her class had approached her in the hallway to introduce themselves and ask if she was going to try out for the cheerleading squad. Chloe had never even considered the possibility, but the idea that someone looked at her and thought that was where she belonged – in the upper echelons of the school’s social hierarchy – was intoxicating. 

And that had been when she had done it. 

Their friendship had crumbled in three moments, spread over three years, and that had been the third. 

As Chloe chatted and giggled with the two girls, Monty had rounded the corner a few yards away, dressed as he always did in well-worn jeans and scuffed sneakers, tonguing the slip inside his lower lip, still healing from a run in with his father two days earlier, and he had lit up with a relieved smile when he saw her. The girls had seen the flash of panic that slipped into her expression, and turned to look. With their attention turned away from her, Chloe had met Monty’s gaze along the hallway and, when he moved to approach, shook her head. 

She thought maybe it had been then that he had learned to lock down his expressions into a mask of impassivity, all of the heartbreak of her rejection secreted inside, where she couldn’t see or know the depth of it. 

He had blinked, hesitated for a moment, and then turned and walked away.

“Do you know him?” one of the girls had questioned, raising a cautious eyebrow, her tone painfully transparent, her hesitation at the possibility she had misjudged Chloe clear. 

“No,” Chloe had answered quickly, and then, deliberately casual. “I think we went to the same elementary school, maybe.”

It had rescued the moment, and the three of them had signed up for cheerleading tryouts together, although the full tally of the cost hadn’t become clear until some time later.

That night, Chloe had pulled on her old pair of skinny jeans and tattered sneakers, and climbed over the back fence. She had tapped on the window a few times, but there was no sound or movement from inside and, although she feared he might simply be ignoring her, she eventually decided that Monty wasn’t there. While her mother and stepfather watched a crime documentary in the living room, she reached in through her bedroom window to snag her skateboard, leaning against the wall beneath the frame, and headed for the skate park. Monty was sitting on his board at the edge of the bowl, his arms folded on his upraised knees and two Cokes on the concrete beside him. Chloe had approached hesitantly, unsure what to expect, and when he didn’t look at her but didn’t ask her to leave, either, sat down beside him. For a long time, they were quiet, listening to the cicadas and crickets in the gardens of the houses that surrounded the dark, empty space, stars blinking silently in the crisp night air above them. Finally, without looking at him, Chloe asked,

“Do you ever wish you could be someone else?”

Monty had glanced at her sidelong and, after a moment, reached for the Cokes, offering one to her.

“Sure.”

But things had never been the same.

And now there was all of this. 

The trial. A dead girl and a dead boy. Two sets of grieving parents. A boy with a hole in his head and a girl outed on the stand and a boy who had nothing left of the girl he had loved but the photos he had taken of her, smiling prettily in the sunlight filtered through the branches of a tree. 

And her. And Monty. And Bryce. 

“Do you think we ever would have ended up together, if I wasn’t with Bryce?”

The Rover slowed suddenly as Monty’s foot faltered on the accelerator. 

“What?” he asked, despite that the question had been clearly articulated and the luxury interior of the Rover practically silent around them, so that there was no doubt that he must have heard. 

Chloe had pondered the question from time to time over the years they had known one another, long before she had even known Bryce Walker’s name, when girls around her were experiencing their first kisses and with romantic comedies that always ended with the best friends realising their love for one another and while her mother’s second marriage imploded. But it hadn’t seemed worth the risk, any attempt to gauge whether he might have felt the same way. Certainly, he hadn’t ever given her that impression, and even though they shared everything with each other, and she had never kept a secret from him, not for most of the time she had known him, this one felt too uncertain and volatile to give voice, when she wasn’t even sure it was something that she wanted, herself. She knew that she loved him, and thought that he loved her, but romantic love, in her experience, was something fickle and dangerous, alternately exhilarating and painful, and what they had, even as it broke, seemed worth more than that.

“I don’t know if I love Bryce,” she said, looking down at her hands, because even without him in the car, even though he was miles away, and Monty would never tell him what she had said, it felt like a dangerous betrayal to admit her disloyalty. “And if I don’t, then I’m not sure why I’m doing all of this. I don’t know if I really want to do it for him.”

Monty took a slow breath and, without offering an immediate response, pulled the Rover to the side of the road, slowing to a stop in an easement beneath some trees. The neighbourhood around them was quiet and dark, typically middle class, with tidy houses and mid-range vehicles parked in the driveways, neat but simple yards and one or two basketball hoops affixed over garage doors further down the street. It wasn’t very different to where she remembered growing up, a two-storey house with a beautiful backyard that her mother had painstakingly maintained for her father to entertain his friends and clients in. Until he had realised he didn’t love them anymore. 

Chloe turned toward the drivers’ seat and regretted, almost immediately, having said anything. Monty’s jaw clenched anxiously, a muscle below his ear flickering, and he looked pale beneath his freckles, each one picked out across his nose and cheeks. His breathing was even but short, matched in tempo to the agitated bounce of his knee.

“I’m sorry,” she insisted, attempting to soothe his discomfort, wishing she could have retrieved the last few seconds and wound the words back inside so that she had never spoken them at all. “You don’t have to say anything. I shouldn’t have-“

“No, I-“ Monty hesitated, and reached down to put the Rover into park, tugging the handbrake into place. His hand lingered there, and Chloe realised that his fingers were shaking. “It’s not that I didn’t ever think about it,” he offered, haltingly, his gaze anywhere but her face. “I just-“ he paused again, and Chloe felt her throat tightening as an involuntary, humiliated flush flooded across his cheeks, and he said, softly, “I don’t think I like girls.”

Chloe blinked, stunned by the admission and terrified of giving the wrong response. Her mind immediately jolted back to that night at the skatepark after the first day of freshman year, and that stupid question _Do you ever wish you could be someone else?_

_Sure_ , he had said, and she had taken the response to mean that he could conceptualise the sentiment and nothing more, assuming that he had neither the means nor the desire to be anything other than he was, not realising that he wished that he could be, more deeply and honestly and desperately than she probably ever had. That, even then, he _was_ being someone else, and she had no idea. 

It had never seemed strange to her that, despite that most kids their age had best friends who were the same gender, they were and remained inseparable for so long. It seemed entirely natural, the way they were together, so that it seemed to transcend any expectations or boundaries that might have otherwise existed. She liked skateboarding and jumping off the pier and pulling pranks, if she was doing it with him. He didn’t mind braiding her hair or cooking for her or dancing around playfully, if it was with her. She had never taken any of it to mean anything, and Monty was such a _boy_ , rigid and rough edged and simplistic, that it had never seemed strange that he showed no interest in dating or girls, his focus on sport and his friends and survival, most of the time. 

Survival, she realised, and doing what he had to do to achieve it, had been much more at critical than she had ever known. 

“It’s OK,” she offered, gently, and he shook his head, her calm acceptance seeming to have the complete opposite effect that she had hoped, his forehead furrowing in a frown as he leaned forward to press the heels of his hands over his eyes.

“Don’t say that. It’s not OK,” he muttered brokenly, and Chloe realised, all at once, how damaged the friendship between them had become, because she had no idea what to do. For almost a decade, despite his fickle reaction to touch and increasingly unpredictable anger, she had never doubted her ability to comfort him or hesitated to try.

She had only ever seen him cry twice in her whole life. 

Almost five years ago, on the same night that he had received the patchwork scar on his calf.

And a year before that, on a sunny, mid-summer afternoon at the neighbourhood recreation centre; the day that their friendship had begun to die. 

Now, as tears began to slip from beneath his hands, tracking down his cheeks and long his jaw, her heart clenched and her own hands remained still in her lap. Without lifting his head, she heard him ask, “How do you know if what you feel is really fucked up, or if it’s what everyone else feels?”

Chloe, throat tight with guilt and feeling entirely useless and unequipped to respond, raised her shoulder in a small shrug, although he wasn’t looking at her. 

“I don’t think anyone knows that for sure,” she said and, with an uncertainty that she attempted to push aside, reached to place a hand on his knee. “But you’re not fucked up.”

“No,” he said, lifting his head to look at her, eyes bright and brimming. “That’s the one thing I really, really am.”

And she saw things, then, the way that he did. 

Because maybe if the Bakers suspected or knew what Bryce was accused of doing to their daughter, and maybe if they had pressed for criminal charges, or even some sort of civil damages against him, that would have been better. Probably, for both of them, the drive to protect Bryce as much as they could would have still persisted, because they still needed him, and those intangible things that he provided. But, all considered, they had survived without him before. They had both weathered hardships Bryce had never even had a reason to consider, struggles so far beneath him that he had no way to know they even existed. They were children of domestic warfare. They could do it again.

What Monty couldn’t survive without, she realised, was Liberty. 

The personal stakes that they shared through their connections to Bryce, from Monty’s perspective, paled in comparison to what he stood to lose if the Bakers won justice for their daughter at trial. A successful case against the school could mean reparations, damages, and what was the price of a girl’s life? Enough to bankrupt the district? Justify the firing of all of those coaches, sitting nicely on salaries far higher than any of the teaching staff, who had given him one chance after another, defended him when others had been eager to see the back of him? And what if his name kept coming up, the way it had in Tyler’s testimony? The way Bryce’s had? If he was expelled, Bryce would simply move on to Hillcrest, or some fancy boarding school. Probably, with her grades strong and steady, if the worst happened, Chloe would qualify for a scholarship, and be able to transfer somewhere to finish the school year. But for Monty, almost eighteen and barely scraping through on the middling grades required to continue playing sport, expulsion from Liberty would be a deathblow, a life sentence to working for his father, trapped in Evergreen, a leafy, idyllic county that, for him, had only ever offered violence and neglect. 

And even if there was no financial penalty awarded, even if the case was unsuccessful, the school administrators couldn’t be seen to be dismissing the concerns of anxious and agitated parents, smeared all over the local newspapers and gossip sites every day since the trial had been announced. They couldn’t act as though there was not an issue of bullying, or jock culture, or casualised predatory behaviour toward their female students, even if they didn’t believe those things to be problematic, or even true. The longer the trial drew out, the more kids who got up on the stand and spoke about their experience being ostracized or targeted, the more kids who dropped the names of Liberty’s star athletes, who commented on their power and protection, who made that link, however unintended, between sports and the issues that led to Hannah Baker’s death, the more necessary a response would become. The cancellation of one sport program would, in a moment, reduce Monty’s chance at an athletic college sponsorship by a third. Cancellation of the entire athletic schedule would destroy that opportunity completely.

And in the name of a girl who was gone and could no longer be helped, he would be banished to a life where he could never be himself, and never be free, because the only thing that his father hated more than his son was what he truly, secretly was. 

Bryce couldn’t protect him from that. And neither could she. 

Chloe took a small breath, and exhaled it slowly, letting go of the hesitation tightening her chest, reaching back for the girl who knew what to do or, at least, never considered that she might not. One hand still resting on Monty’s knee, she reached with the other to touch his temple, drawing him close enough to lean forward and press a kiss to his forehead.

“I was wrong,” she said, holding him there, as his shoulders began to shake with trapped, involuntary sobs. “I do know why we’re doing this.”

Maybe she couldn’t quite believe that Bryce was worth it. 

But he was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back to Monty and Chloe, where I like to be! Even if it's a little sad and bittersweet... and probably not going to get any better. 
> 
> Next up is a parent chapter - this time everyone's favourite loving mother, Amber Foley :) I'm about halfway through the first draft so will hopefully with the long weekend I'll stay on track to update around this time next week-ish. 
> 
> Thank you as always to Comfortwriter28 for the beta check and feedback, I hope I was able to correct all of the incorrect assumptions I had made about the potential impact of the trial on the school :) Your insider knowledge was invaluable!
> 
> Thank you for reading and commenting. I tossed up whether or not to have Monty make this admission pre-s3 canon, and I just couldn't resist. I'm interested to hear what you thought :)
> 
> Happy Easter and I hope everyone is staying safe <3


	11. Amber

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our four little messed up peas from the perspective of Amber Foley.

Amber Tiffany Foley was born shortly after eight in the evening on a cold, cloudy Autumn day, and her fifteen-year-old mother held her for roughly three minutes before the nurses took her away to clean her up.

By the following morning, her mother was gone, packing her scant belongings into the dirty, threadbare backpack she had arrived with, and slipping out during the night, without ever touching her baby, sleeping quietly in the plastic bassinet beside her hospital bed, again. 

Amber couldn’t remember this, of course. But she was determined to be a better mother than her own. 

The first fourteen years of her life, she spent in institutions and group homes and foster care, sleeping in twenty-six different bedrooms shared with an endless, now faceless parade of other unwanted children. Her memories from that time were scant and disjointed, wilfully locked away or obscured by years of drinking and narcotics. 

She remembered, with no particular order or connection:  
\- a small, fluffy dog with floppy ears,   
\- a backyard with a wood-shed where they would have to sleep in the cold and dark if they misbehaved,   
\- a smear of blood on the pink porcelain sink of a shared bathroom,   
\- the heavy smell of lavender essential oils on the dress of an old woman who hugged her warmly,   
\- the dark beard of a man she didn’t know, who followed her into the bathroom at a ninth birthday her classmate had invited her to because her mother made her,  
\- pressing her hands over the mouth of a girl who had arrived to the temporary housing facility that day, smothering her screams as the other girls from the dorm laid into her with their fists, the same jumping in she had experienced months earlier,  
\- a cake with pink frosting flowers, the only birthday cake she had ever had,  
\- the sound of a woman’s pitiful wailing in between heavy, sickening thuds, while she hid in the closet,  
\- a boy with shaved ginger hair and a gap between his two front teeth, who passed her a cigarette, lighting it through the fence for her, and told her she had pretty eyes.

Sometimes, she thought that the foster families and group homes were better – there, survival was more of a gamble, and the stakes were higher, but increased risk also meant increased reward. Sometimes a homecooked meal, or a backyard with an old but mostly functional swing-set, or a neighbourhood child who could have been a friend, under different circumstances. In the temporary housing facilities, she could rely on all of her basic needs being met, but it was also colourless and flat. The dorm rooms were bland and impersonal, the food repetitive, the rules strict, and the endless revolving door of children nobody wanted predictably depressing. As she had grown older, it began to feel like living in a no-kill animal shelter, and she wished they would change the rules. Euthanasia would have been safer for society, in some cases, and a small, belated mercy, to others. 

At fourteen, Amber had packed her warmest clothes into her school backpack, long past tears and anger, cocooning all of that in wilful numbness as she walked out the front door of her last foster home and continued down the street without looking back. When he realised she was gone the following morning, her foster father convinced his wife that they would not be allowed to take in any more children if they reported Amber missing and, seeing as how they relied on the subsidy payments they received for each of the five wards of the state crammed into their two spare bedrooms, she agreed to keep quiet. He did not tell her that he had freaked out and blamed Amber the night before when he had realised, after finishing and pulling out, sitting back on the end of her narrow single bed, that the condom had broken. By the time Amber’s assigned social worker made her next scheduled visit and realised they had been subsidising the care of a vanished child, she had crossed state lines into California. 

She hadn’t been pregnant, as it turned out, and she was determined to keep it that way. 

Lying about her age, Amber bounced around between shelters and refuges until she picked up a job bussing tables and cleaning dishes at a hole-in-the-wall Taiwanese restaurant. It paid enough to keep her in a tiny rented room, furnished with a mattress on the floorboards and a lopsided chest of drawers to keep her clothes in, which she dragged home a few blocks from where it had been left on the side of the road. She shared the apartment with four other people who worked odd jobs and odd hours, and didn’t complain in the morning when she had spent the night screaming through night terrors, either because they had been at work, out of their minds on drugs, or simply didn’t care. The owners let her take home any leftover food that wouldn’t keep long enough to be served the following night, and the cook, when she stepped outside into the alleyway for a break one busy afternoon, offered her a whiff of the sticky, acrid smelling smoke he inhaled from a small square of tinfoil. 

The first thing that hit her was a sharp pain that flared in her nasal passage and felt like a hard, sharp blow to her forehead, and Amber had screwed her eyes tightly closed, jerking her head back. 

And then had come the euphoric wave of calm, washing over her like slipping gently backwards into warm water, everything slow and distant and safe, even her thoughts, which melted to harmless, indistinct shades of pastel and slid so far away that it felt as though they could never hurt her again. 

Four months later, one of the owners came looking for her after she failed to return from her break and found her nodded out in the alleyway. They actually looked sort of sad when they told her she was fired, and recommended a community centre a few blocks away where she might be able to get free counselling. 

Amber told them to get fucked and stole the tipping plate on her way out.

Much like her childhood, the next few years sank into an indistinguishable mire, punctuated with sharp, jagged memories of sleeping in alleyways and getting into strangers’ cars and being picked up by the cops, crashing on couches and fighting with people whose names and faces she couldn’t remember, shitty dead-end jobs and men who said they cared about her but – like all men – only cared about what they could gain from her, her feet freezing in damp boots as she walked the winter streets at night, social workers who invited her into programs that most of the time she shrugged off and even those ones that she did try – they only ever lasted a week or two. And through all that - dealer after dealer until they all looked and sounded the same – her best friend until she couldn’t afford to pay them, until they cut her off or found some other way to settle up her debt and then sent her packing. 

One of those dealers had made her think he was different to the others. Amber had met him outside of a hotel where she sometimes picked up tricks, after being let go from her latest waitressing job at a rail-side diner for skimming from the cash register. He had met someone in the hotel bar for a drink and was on his way home when she called out to him to ask if she could bum a smoke. He worked as a carpenter, erecting house and roof frames by day, and mostly dealt weed to his friends, a common side-hustle in California, at least amongst the people she knew. He commented that she looked cold, bundled into a thin coat over a small, well-worn dress and threadbare sneakers – her last pair of shoes that hadn’t completely fallen apart – and offered her a hot, home-cooked meal and a place to sleep. 

It had been a transactional arrangement, at first, and Amber had been fine with that. Most of her relationships were that way, but far less to her advantage than this one. And anyway, love wasn’t real – just some bullshit made up to sell flowers and chocolates and Hollywood movies. He didn’t hurt her, he didn’t kick her out, he shared his weed with her and, when she woke up, screaming and blind with terror in the night, he soothed her with gentle words and didn’t try to touch her until she was ready, smoothing her hair back from her face and rubbing circles over her back to ease her back to sleep. He said that she reminded him of his sister, and Amber thought that was sort of weird but also sort of sweet. He helped her find another job, working at a hand car wash, and even though most of the other workers were immigrant men who barely spoke English, Amber found she enjoyed it – she liked being out in the sun during the day, pretending that the fancy, mid-range cars that customers brought by to have detailed while they shopped at the nearby malls were hers, the guys on the crew smiled at her and played funky music with lyrics in Spanish, and they didn’t give her shit when she showed up to work late or stoned. 

The money didn’t hurt, either. Weed was good and fine, but heroin never stopped calling to her, and she found herself powerless to deny it.

Eventually, as they always did, things began to decay. Part of her knew that it was because of her using. It was because it frightened and disappointed him, the way the drugs heightened and sharpened her mania and deepened her depression. It eroded any trust that had grown between them, because money started to go missing from his wallet and the pockets of his jeans. He would come home from work to find strangers, high and uncontrolled and uncaring, in his home. For the first time since they had met, they started to fight. Amber wasn’t afraid of fighting – she had fought all her life, with her fists and her teeth, with furious silence, with a stubborn refusal to give in, to hold on and survive. He wouldn’t ever hurt her, she trusted that, but he wouldn’t allow her to hurt him, not forever, and she couldn’t bear to let him turn his back on her. 

This time, when the condom broke, it wasn’t an accident. 

Far from achieving what she had hoped – something for them to look forward to together, to strengthen their bond, to distract them from everything that was going wrong between them, to make him look at her warmly again, instead of just with desperate, bitter sadness – he had gone pale and quiet when she told him the good news. 

“You did this on purpose,” he said, and his tone was so strange, she couldn’t quite tell if it was anger or sadness or accusation or disappointment or all of them, her head swimming with the rippling aftereffects of the hit she had shared with one of the guys from the car wash crew behind the equipment shed after they had finished their shift. His eyes pinned her, pale clearwater blue. “Didn’t you?”

Amber had shaken her head, lost for words.

“Aren’t you excited?” she had insisted, reaching for his hands, rough and calloused and warm. “Don’t you want to be a daddy?”

He would have been so good at it. She was sure.

But he shook his head.

“No, I don’t,” he said, and it was matter-of-fact, but even through the warm haze that coated her consciousness, she could hear the pain that strained beneath the words. “I really, really don’t, Amber. And this isn’t fair. You haven’t given me a choice.” She had opened her mouth, tried to protest, but he had squeezed her hands. “But I’m going to give you one.”

She bit her lip and waited. 

“I’ll pay for it, if you want to terminate the pregnancy,” he offered, plainly, reasonably, and still, it felt like a kick in the guts. “If you don’t want to, that’s fine. I won’t make you do it. But you can’t stay here. I’ll give you some money for rent, but I won’t raise a child with you. I never wanted this, and I won’t do it.”

Amber had looked at this man who had taken her in and treated her like a human being, who had, at first, exchanged sex for providing a place to stay and food to eat, weed to smoke and company to talk to. And she had let herself think, as he bought her clothes and found her a job and let her choose flowers to plant in his backyard and a new colour to paint the living room, that that meant he cared about her. That she was more to him than she had ever been to anyone. That she was someone worth caring about, not just a service or a commodity, not just a good time until she was inconvenient, not a punching bag to take out a foul mood on or nothing more useful than what was between her legs. 

She had been an idiot. 

Sneering, she had stood up from the couch, and slapped him as hard as she could. 

“Fuck you.”

She had packed her things that night, storming from room to room, throwing his belongings aside, stuffing clothes that he had bought for her into a bag. He had asked her to let him drive her somewhere, to the bus station or a motel, had asked her to sleep on it and reconsider with fresh eyes in the morning, but she had been burning with fury, and had shoved him out of the way as she stormed from the house. He had followed her down the driveway and tried to offer her a small roll of bills, which she snatched from his hand and threw into the dark wilderness of the neighbour’s unkempt front yard. 

“Get fucked, asshole,” she had snapped at him as she turned on her heel and stalked down the street.

She hadn’t slowed her pace until she reached the main road, where she turned to walk with the flow of traffic and stuck her thumb out hopefully, her other hand pressed to the tiny curve of her abdomen. 

She would be a better mother than hers had never even bothered to be. 

~

Justin was not an easy baby. Or maybe no babies were ever easy. Amber had no way of knowing. 

As a newborn, he refused to latch, and the bitch midwife on the maternity ward refused to let her opt out of trying to breastfeed, even as Justin wailed, red faced and hungry, and she cursed and struggled and gave up. 

That was more or less how things continued. 

Amber moved him straight onto formula as soon as she was able to leave the hospital – not before they forced her to take a shit in front of one of the nurses, just to prove that she could – but that was expensive and sterilising bottles was next to impossible in her cramped, one-bedroom welfare apartment, because the electric kettle hadn’t been replaced since she complained because it gave her an electric shock during her third trimester that booted her halfway across the room, and the water tasted metallic anyway. When the tin of powder ran low, and Justin was screaming in his bassinet in the bedroom, Amber would sit on the floor of the kitchen – so tiny that with her legs crossed, her knees touched the oven door and the opposite wall – and weep. There was no way she could afford another tin and groceries on her welfare cheque, and she was already so far in the hole with two of the local dealers that neither would consider extending her any more credit. 

Once Justin moved on to solids - _so young!_ the old women at the supermarket would comment, watching him munch on a piece of bread or a cookie with toothless gums, impressed at his determination, oblivious to the fact that it was solid food or nothing, and even he could understand that, at only a few months old – he was a little easier to handle, but not much. Solids made his diapers, which had already made her gag, unbearable, and Amber would delay changing them as long as she could, slathering his rashy skin with ointment and reminding herself that, anyway, diapers were a fucking rip off. For the cost of a pack, she could score five bags of heroin, or double the amount of Vicodin pills, if she wanted to stretch it out. 

By the time he was six months old, Amber left Justin with an elderly neighbour while she worked pouring drinks at a topless bar, tying her silly little apron high enough around her thin waist to hide the stretch marks. She worked the afternoon shift – her tits weren’t good enough for nights, the manager said – and the tips were lousy but the clients were tame enough. She had agreed to pay her neighbour thirty dollars a week to watch Justin, but the woman didn’t push her when she claimed she had forgotten or had to pay a bill and would fix her up next week. Anyway, Amber figured, Justin was a pretty easy kid to look after. He had learned that crying got him nothing and nowhere, and spent most of the day lying on a towel in the woman’s living room, gazing up at the midday movies with clearwater blue eyes. 

Amber could count the time that passed between then and Justin’s first day of elementary school in so many ways.

Six apartments.  
Nine jobs.  
Seven boyfriends – three serious, two casual, two she dated at the same time until they found out about each other – and one fiancé.   
One failed engagement and one abortion.   
Five overdoses.   
Two stints in rehab.   
Twenty-three months clean, spread over five years.   
Eight court appearances to have Justin returned to her care after he was removed by protective services – twice.   
Four arrests and three misdemeanours.   
One car.

And Justin. 

Some days, he felt like a weight hanging around her neck, a heavy stone dragging her to the bottom of a freezing river, paralysing her and draining her strength, stealing her choices and freedom. But even on those days, even when she wished that she could close his bedroom door and, when she came back, he would be gone to some nice place so that both of their lives would be easier, there was something irresistible about his presence in her life. He was so engaged and inquisitive, so easily impressed and amused, so innocent and willing to forgive. He loved her – adored her, even, threw tantrums in his toddler years when separated from her, insisted on holding her hand when they crossed the street – and he _saw_ her. When he looked at her, his gaze didn’t slip right through her, as if she wasn’t there at all, the way she had become used to. His blue eyes – a painfully familiar shade – locked on her, and he saw her. 

~

At first, Justin struggled at school. Amber couldn’t afford new shoes or clothes – the backpack and book list for third grade had eaten into her scant rainy-day savings as it was. Even though she had been four months clean by then, and working afternoons and evenings as a sales clerk at the adult store in town, dealing with middle-aged men who “innocently” asked her opinion of ridiculously lewd sexual aids and teenagers who snuck in to giggle at the paraphernalia, it was a difficult balancing act. Earning too much - _too much_ , the definition was horrifying and laughable – saw her welfare payments cut, and it was all she could do to keep the electricity on and the water running, and Justin from starving – as he grew, the kid ate like a fucking beast, like his father, despite inheriting her slight frame. He would never admit it to her, but she knew that the other kids teased him for his thrift store clothes and his unkempt hair – he refused to let her cut it after the last time she had attempted it, her hands jittering less than a week after her last hit - and she had accidentally caught the tip of his ear in the scissors. 

And then things had changed. 

It was slow, at first, so that she didn’t notice it right away. Justin became cautiously optimistic about attending school, and didn’t have to be dragged out of bed and into the bathroom every morning, brushing his teeth without being reminded and combing his hair without her needling him about it. His grades were still scarcely average – that was OK, she hadn’t expected to raise a rocket scientist – but his report cards commented on his improved engagement and enthusiasm, and it made her feel strange, sort of warm and bolstered, in a way that she couldn’t remember feeling before. 

“Ma,” he asked, one night when she got home from a particularly long shift of having to watch a barely legal couple browsing the aisles and pointing out products to each other in enthusiastic, saucy whispers. “Could I join Little League?”

Amber, pouring herself a glass of wine from the cheap bottle she had kept in the fridge and stretched over the last week and a half, had sighed as she screwed the cap back on. Her back to him, she returned the bottle to the fridge and closed the door. 

“Baby, you know I can’t afford that,” she said, aiming for apologetic, although she couldn’t quite smother the terseness that kicked around underneath. Another thing Justin had inherited from his father was his infuriatingly long fuse. He was slow to anger, and knew that she wasn’t. Quickly, as a child, he had learned that the fastest way to get her attention – even if that meant starting a fight he knew the outcome of before it began – was to ask her for money. 

Justin, standing in the kitchen doorway in his pyjamas, just nodded. 

“No, I know,” he said, and if he was disappointed, she couldn’t quite tell. He watched her slide into a chair at the tiny table where they ate dinner, and slipped into the seat across from her. “Some of the guys at school, they go.” He screwed up his nose a little. “Well, they mostly go to the one up by the swimming pools.” Amber took a swig from her wine glass to cover the scoff that prickled in her throat. She would probably get picked up by the sheriff’s department for having the audacity to even step foot in that part of the county, and certainly couldn’t afford any extra-curriculars that might be based there. “But some of them go to the rec centre in town,” he continued, this option far closer to their budget but still undeniably beyond their reach, then bit his lip. “Maybe I could get a paper route or something?”

Amber smiled at him tiredly over the rim of her wine glass. 

“Sure, baby. Maybe.”

Justin had done just that – had badgered every newsagent within a ten-block radius of their apartment block until eventually the old Vietnamese man who owned the little hole in the wall three blocks East had given in. He paid Justin ten dollars a week to drop pamphlets into mailboxes, and although he had missed the intake for the current season of Little League, Justin was serious about managing his money. The first thing he bought was a money bank, a little tin rectangle printed with pictures of **Transformers** , and he dutifully tucked his pay inside each week, until one weekend, while Amber was lying on the couch, still stewing over a fight with her asshole boss the night before, who had accused her of stealing from the cash register, when actually she had just _borrowed_ from it and it wasn’t like he was hard up for twenty lousy bucks anyway, Justin appeared by the coffee table with the money box in his hands.

“Ma,” he said, hesitantly, and she cracked one eye open to look at him. “Can I go to a birthday party?”

Justin had never had a birthday party or attended one. For them, birthday parties were like Santa and the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. Sometimes they showed up – and sometimes she got it exactly right, because kids didn’t need all that fanfare and bullshit when they were easily impressed by a big old stack of truck-stop diner pancakes and a few sparklers - but usually, they rolled around late and with scant offerings. When he was younger, it had been easier to brush off. He didn’t really understand the concept of a birthday – neither had she, at his age – but when he grew old enough that kids would invite their entire class to their party to celebrate, he began to understand what he had been denied, what he was still missing out on, what she had never had and could never afford to give him. Not in any way that would have measured up in the eyes of those other mothers at the school, who sent Tupperware containers full of home-baked, buttercream frosted, gluten and allergen free cupcakes for their little treasure to share with the class, as if birthdays were something glorious, and not just a marker for surviving another year. 

Amber didn’t know the first thing about baking, or how to learn. 

“Justin…” she sighed, a note of warning already colouring her tone, pre-empting an argument she honestly didn’t have the energy for. 

“I’ll buy the present,” Justin rushed to explain, stepping forward into the room, his money tin clutched in both hands. “And it’s at his house, so everything else is free.” He dug into the pocket of his sweater and pulled out a carefully folded invitation, a print and copy store number all in shades of blue, Justin’s name handwritten in somebody’s neat cursive along the dotted line marked for the invitee. “It’s a pool party, at his house. They’re doing a cook out. And there’s going to be games. And superheros.” He rolled his eyes in a way Amber had never seen before, an expression he must have picked up from someone else. “Well, people dressed up as superheros, like Iron Man and Captain America.”

Amber cocked an eyebrow, looking down at the invitation that he handed her. 

The address was on the other side of town, in the sweeping, leafy suburbs where the mayor and the lawyers and the real estate agents lived, a place that was so far out of her reach, the closest she could ever hope to come to one of their palatial homes was cleaning its bathrooms for a few dollars an hour. 

She thought about the bottle of wine in the door of the fridge, and the half a glass left in the bottom, and clenched her jaw as a jolt of need tore along her spine and slammed into the base of her skull. 

“Who’s Bryce?”

Justin lifted his shoulder in a casual shrug.

“He’s my friend from school,” he offered, a little cagily, because she rarely asked him about school, and he never brought any friends home to the flat. When he was smaller, he was content playing with the other children who lived in the building, or making games with her, building forts from sofa cushions and playing hide and seek, which had been his favourite until that one time when he had been hiding in the hallway cupboard and she had sat down in the kitchen for a moment, dizzy, and when he crept from his hiding place almost forty minutes later, she had been sprawled on the linoleum, glassy eyed and barely breathing. He never wanted to play hide and seek, after that. 

“Oh, yeah?” Amber flexed her jaw, attempting to press back the urge to grind her teeth against the craving beginning to burn across her nerve endings, the searing heat of it adding a thread of scorn to her tone. “He invite the whole class?”

Justin looked down at the money box, always so easily chastised, particularly by her.

“No,” he said, with just a hint of the pout that turned the corners of his mouth downwards. He hesitated, but added, “He doesn’t have many friends.”

Amber bristled defensively, instinctively, and struggled for the self-control to push it down. Sometimes, Justin could be so simplistic in his view of the world that she wondered why in the fuck the education department had been on her ass so much about all those times he missed school, like keeping a roof over his head any damn way she could hadn’t been as important as teaching him numbers and words and concepts that he sometimes seemed to have no grasp of at all. Other times, he was so perceptive it cut her like a knife’s edge, his words and their meaning precise and weaponized in a way that went beyond her blunt use of them, and made her wonder where in the hell he learned this shit. 

Maybe this kid, Bryce, didn’t have many friends. But even if that were true, what Justin meant was _he_ didn’t have many friends. _She_ didn’t have many friends. And he wanted better than that. 

“I have to work next weekend,” she said, handing him back the invitation without meeting his eyes. “If you want to pay for a gift and a bus fare, that’s up to you.” She shrugged. “It’s your money.”

Justin simply nodded, and left the room. 

She waited until after he had bought the present – a water pistol for his friend to play with at the pool party – before she prised open the Transformers money box while he was at school, tipped out the contents, and left him enough coins for the bus fare. The remainder scored her two bags of H and a fistful of Tramadol. 

Justin didn’t say anything about it, despite that she left the money tin laying open on its side, and the coins scattered across the top of his dresser. 

And when he came home from the party the next weekend, half of his face painted as Spiderman and the other half pink with sunburn, she didn’t say anything about the Mercedes SUV that dropped him off outside of the apartment building as she watched from the window, or the loot-bag of treats and the neatly boxed-up, leftover party food that he brought with him. 

Quietly, leaving the food on the kitchen table, Justin approached her where she was curled up on the sofa, drifting smoothly on a couple of pills and a third of a bottle of wine, and sat down beside her. He didn’t look at her, his blue eyes turned toward the classic movie playing on the television, and after a moment, he leaned into her side, nuzzling his sun-warmed cheek against her shoulder. With tingling, half-numb fingers, she reached out and touched his hair, dandelion fine and curling away from his scalp in random chlorinated licks. 

When Amber blinked her eyes open, the apartment was dark, and there was a late-night talk show on the television, but Justin hadn’t left her, his sunburnt cheek pressed into her ribs, his eyelashes fluttering over the cracking painted spider-web pattern on his cheek as he dreamed, warm and comfortable, at her side. 

~

The asshole who ran the adult store fired her because some other nosy fuck who couldn’t mind their own business told him they saw her shooting up in the alleyway behind the store – like she wasn’t entitled to do whatever the hell she wanted on her break, anyway – and none of her regular dealers would even pick up the phone if she didn’t have cash, so Wally at the Blue Spot Liquor Store became her best friend, until she couldn’t even afford to pay him anymore, and a week after Justin turned eleven, with nothing in the cupboards but a few tins of beans and a mostly empty bottle of vodka, their power was cut off. 

By that point, Justin had begun to feel more like a lodger than her child, spending most of his time with his rich kid friend, Bryce. She saw the way that he tried to hide the things he came home with – shoes she hadn’t bought him and could never afford to, a backpack that looked like it came from one of those big department stores where security would follow them around surreptitiously as they browsed – and Amber wondered how much of his secretiveness was to protect her pride, and how much of it was intended to shield himself from how she might react. Then there were the things he couldn’t hide – the haircuts, the way that his frame filled out, not just as he began to enter puberty but from eating well and often. It suited him, her handsome boy, that healthy tan and some meat on his bones, but it was bittersweet to see him growing without being able to contribute to it. 

Part of her wanted to remind him what things like that cost for people like them. No one gave anything freely - _no one_ \- and she wondered what price Justin paid for those school supplies and field trips she couldn’t afford to send him on and that big stack of books he came home with that one time, like books had ever done anyone any fucking good. Sometimes, when cravings were eating her alive from the inside, when she felt like clawing at her own skin to let out the fire burning in her veins, to set free the pitch-dark memories that tormented her as she came down, she couldn’t help the words that poured from her, acidic and sharp. _Friends is a made-up word. You’ll see. Maybe you don’t even realise what you’re doing for him, but it’s something he wants. And as soon as you stop doing it, you’ll be crawling back here and I’ll say I fucking told you so-_

Amber saw the way it hurt him when she said it, his expressions always so transparent, his emotions never far from the surface, and she meant it, even if she didn’t mean to hurt him with the truth, not really. 

Although she wondered, in moments of lucidity, who the fuck was she to judge his need to connect with another human being?

Eventually she found another job cleaning municipal offices in the early evenings. It was boring work and harder than she would have preferred – the vacuum and floor polisher were heavy to push around and they complained if she didn’t remember to empty all of the waste paper baskets or wipe down all of the desks in the fancy town planning and civic services areas – but she had her own key to let herself in, and could take as little or as long as she liked, working by herself. 

Well, most of the time, she was by herself.

Sometimes, one of the town planners worked late, and although there was a predatory undertone to the way that he smiled at her that reminded her of her last foster father, Amber found herself making sure she showed up on time for her shifts, her cheeks flushing when she looked up at his office window from the lobby and noticed him watching her work. Even when he was working late, he never set his waste paper basket out by his office door, waving her in to come and collect it from beneath his desk. The first time that she felt his hand brush the back of her thigh as she bent to reach for the basket past his knee, her instinct had been to wheel around and slap him, but she pushed it down, and within two weeks, that touch had become a firm hand beneath her uniform smock, and her on her knees beneath his desk, and his name plaque - _Michael Radic_ \- clattering to the carpet along with the stationary and photo frames from his desk, a lady and two little girls landing face-down as she threw her head back in pleasure. 

He didn’t speak to her much – mostly, she chattered away about her landlord and the people on the bus and the things she saw in his colleague’s offices and waste paper baskets – and that suited her fine. The way he looked at her was enough. It wasn’t the way Justin looked at her – like she was a person, like any other, no more or less worthy than anybody else – it was less than that, but it was better than the people who threw her a judgemental glance in the street or the supermarket aisles, or pointedly avoided looking at her altogether, as if they might will her out of existence if they pretended she wasn’t actually there. 

It had been a little over a year of inconsistent but frequent moments together when, early one evening, bent forwards to press against his office window, Amber had opened her eyes and spotted two small girls – one around Justin’s age, the other barely toddling – crossing the lobby to the elevator. Before she could say anything, he had spotted them over her shoulder, stumbling over the base of his swivel chair in his haste to jerk back from view as a slim blonde woman appeared in the reception area below them, a coat worn over her dress and heels. 

“Shit,” he muttered, fumbling to straighten his clothes and zip his fly. “Shit. Shit.”

Amber watched the little girls step into the elevator, the older of the pair, blonde and delicate, like the woman, reaching for the hand of the younger girl, dark haired and olive skinned, wearing a frilly pink dress and a pointed, cardboard party hat. 

“Is it your birthday?” she asked over her shoulder, as she straightened her underwear and tugged her uniform back into place. He snorted, somewhere behind her.

“Yeah, it’s my fucking birthday,” he said, re-buckling his belt. “Now get away from the window, would you? And stay in here.”

Amber cast one last look at the woman in the lobby – pretty, she thought, not classy, exactly, but trying to be – then stepped away as he snatched his jacket from the back of his chair, his wallet and phone from the desk, and strode out of the room. She heard the elevator arrive at the far end of the hall, and the smile in his voice, and couldn’t help creeping closer to the door to watch him lift the dark-haired little girl, smiling as he reached up to adjust her crooked party hat. The girl, under two, Amber guessed, wriggled to be set down, eager to return to the elevator, where she pressed buttons gleefully, giggling every time the doors tried to close and he reached out to stop them. In profile, even at a distance, Amber could see the dark frown that he turned toward the older blonde girl, who hesitated just outside of the elevator, a home-made “happy birthday” sign hanging between her hands.

“The hell are you all doing here?” he hissed at her, the warmth he had radiated for the toddler simmered down to contempt. “Whose idea was this?”

The girl looked conflicted, but not surprised, the banner sagging from her grasp. 

“We’re going for dinner and ice cream,” she murmured, looking down at her sneakers. When he reached for her elbow, impatient, the girl looked up at him with wide blue eyes, her gaze flicking over his shoulder for a fraction of a second to spot Amber in the office doorway. Her expression barely flickered, comprehension flattening any surprise that might have registered there. Amber didn’t bother to step back from view, watching the girl feebly present the celebration sign in her hands. It was decorated with glitter pens and colourful, although messily filled-in, drawings of presents and streamers and party decorations, scattered around bubble letter proclaiming _Happy birthday, Dad! Love Amelia and Chloe_. “It was supposed to be a surprise. Amelia and I made you a sign, for your office window.”

Amber glanced back at the window, smudged with their handprints. 

“Let’s keep that for home,” he said, tugging the sign from her grasp and rolling it untidily. He nodded for the girl to step into the elevator, and she slipped into the far corner, folding her arms across her chest, while the little girl peered around the edge of the doors, pointing and smiling.

“Mama?”

He glanced over his shoulder as he stepped into the elevator, the frown that creased his brow when he realised how many floors the toddler had pressed buttons for deepening to a scowl as he spotted Amber in his office doorway. With one hand, he reached to pat her dark head of curls, then began pressing buttons to disengage the floors she had called the elevator to. 

“That’s not Mama,” he corrected, looking down the hallway as the elevator doors slid closed, straight past her, as it she wasn’t even there. “That’s just the cleaning lady.”

~

A week later, the cleaning company called to say they had received a complaint that money had been stolen from the petty cash tin at the council offices, and they were letting her go. They had no evidence – Amber knew they didn’t because she had stumbled upon that tin browsing desk drawers for anything of interest, and hadn’t for the life of her been able to find the stupid key – but that didn’t matter, of course. She thought about showing up there, giving them a piece of her mind, all those idiots in their fancy skirts and ties and heels, but in the end, she went to find her dealer instead. 

She didn’t tell Justin about losing her job, and he didn’t ask – it was obvious enough from the amount of time she spent around the apartment, lying listlessly on the couch, as if she might be able to simply slip away from her life, if she just refused to participate in it. What was the fucking point, anyway? She worked her ass off doing things she hated just so that she could make enough money for a hit that would allow her to feel something, or preferably nothing, for once, and to keep her kid from starving, while he looked at her with those sad blue eyes when he thought she wouldn’t notice? Why in the fuck hadn’t she taken the money, all those years ago? Why hadn’t she just agreed to terminate the pregnancy? Maybe he hadn’t loved her, and all he ultimately wanted was sex, but he had cared about her enough to look after her, and that was more than she could say for any other human being she had encountered in her life. 

That Justin had turned out so much like him, despite never having met him, despite that she told the kid he was an asshole and a deadbeat and a piece of shit who never wanted him, just made it worse. 

As Justin entered high school – Amber wasn’t even quite sure how he got enrolled, she had no recollection of the process or having any involvement in it – she tried a few more short-term jobs. She worked in a factory for a few weeks, but that was so mind-numbingly boring that she simply stopped showing up. She waitressed at a diner and, a few years and a few odd jobs after that, bussed tables and washed dishes at a Chinese food buffet. She got a job with the town council for a little while – proving the theft allegation bullshit – picking up trash and cleaning graffiti from buildings and playground equipment. It was enough to keep the power and the water on, and if there was no food in the apartment, Justin just disappeared anyway, off to his rich pals, she assumed. To whoever was paying for the Liberty Tigers sports uniforms that showed up in the laundry basket and the brand new sneakers that he laid out – not kicked off, like he normally would – at the foot of his bed. She thought about asking him about practice, but he volunteered nothing, and she began to wonder, until she was certain, that the reason he kept so quiet about it was because he didn’t _want_ her to know. Didn’t want her showing up at his games or practises, didn’t want her involved in his life in any way that he could avoid.

It was hardly the only thing that he hid from her. One particularly hot summer afternoon, after hours of scrubbing and power-washing spray-painted dicks from the side of the equipment shed at the recreation centre, until the heat became so oppressive that, when the foreman refused to let her take a smoke break, she told him he could go fuck himself and threw her uniform vest at his feet, Amber had come home to find Justin on the couch with a girl. Typical teenagers, they had made a hasty attempt to appear innocent, sitting a good two feet apart as if their clothes weren’t rumpled from being tugged back into place in a hurry. The girl was pretty, dark curly hair and bright brown eyes, a pink flush warming her cheeks at having been caught. Justin looked far less contrite, slouching casually, as if to dare her to comment on the open button of his fly.

“Hey, baby,” Amber drawled, eyeing the pair. “Aren’t you going to introduce your friend?”

He looked at her directly, blue eyes full of defiance. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” he countered, blinking innocently. 

He was well and truly a teenager by that point, oscillating between insisting that he was a man and didn’t need her or anyone else to take care of him, and being desperately needy, craving comfort and reassurance, fretting when she was absent or sick with withdrawal. It could be amusing, but mostly it was frustrating, the caring little boy who had always been the one dependable constant in her life turning her own plays against her, disappearing for days at a time, spending half of his free time stoned to the gills, keeping things from her, playing the victim card when she called him out on it. She was so used to being on the opposite side of those interactions that she had no idea how to deal with any of it. And anyway, Justin hadn’t really needed her for a long time. He had been able to take care of himself for years by that stage – out of necessity, if nothing else. It was a dubious relief. 

The one thing they clashed over the most was Seth. 

Amber had met Seth outside of the unemployment office, where she had reluctantly dragged herself to reactivate her benefits after the owners of the Chinese buffet got sick of her breaking plates and dishes, her unsteady hands, shaking and spasming through withdrawals, unable to maintain a trustworthy grip on the wet cutlery as she washed and dried it. He had been smoking by the entrance, eyeing each person who walked in, and had lifted his chin to nod at her when she caught his eye. 

She wasn’t an idiot. No matter what people said or thought about her, she wasn’t stupid. Amber knew he was bad news.

Welcome to most of the human race. Nobody wanted anything except personal gain, and if it came at the cost of others, well, so fucking what?

Seth was no different, he just didn’t bother trying to hide it, and in Amber’s experience, that was something to be grateful for. He was up front about what he would offer her – drugs, whatever she wanted, maybe not exactly what she wanted, or in the amount she wanted it, or at the time her body craved it, but something that would dull the need well enough, at least. And he was clear about what he expected in return – money, sex, a place to crash if he showed up at the door, obedience, respect, and for her to keep Justin out of his hair. Most of the time, that was easy enough. Justin despised Seth, and actually, Amber didn’t have to do much of anything to deter him from hanging about the apartment when Seth was there – simply stand back when their snarking escalated into violence. Like her, Justin always backed down and scampered away, his tail between his legs. It ached a little, to see him hurt physically and emasculated in that way, but like everything else in life, it was about survival, and if Justin had learned one thing from her, it was how to survive.

Even before he could possibly have understood the concepts, Justin knew – survival trumped pride. It was more important than saving face or being gracious or maintaining morality or anything else. If you couldn’t survive, none of that other shit mattered anyway, and maybe most people never got close enough to that reality to have to acknowledge it, but she had, and he had, and that made them the same. 

So, they settled into a sort of uneasy truce, composed of unspoken agreements. Seth would make sure she had access to the drugs she needed if she did what he asked in return. Justin would keep out of their way, in so much as his volatile teenage hormones and troublesome drive to protect her would allow, in an effort to keep the peace. And Amber would make sure that the rent was paid and the utilities stayed connected, in exchange for the tentative, temporary calm that each of the men in her life offered, in their own ways. 

That meant finding another job. 

Eventually, she found a dive bar on the outskirts of town, close to the docks in a blocky, unobtrusive building that she had passed hundreds of times to meet people on a particular corner or by a disused berth, without realising what it was. They opened mid-morning for the alcoholics and day drinkers, and closed a little after midnight most nights. At first, she got stuck with dayshifts, where the tips were shitty but the customers were mostly harmless, bellying up to the bar and spending the entire day there, with nowhere else to be and no one who cared what they were doing otherwise. It was a good opportunity to learn to pour, because most of them didn’t give a damn if she pushed a glass toward them that was mostly head, as long as it contained alcohol. Amber had come to know some of them by name, even got friendly with a few of them, by the time the owner trusted her enough to start giving her evening hours. 

That was where the real money was. Not only because the tradesmen, dock workers and contractors showed up after their shifts – but because Seth could send his guys by to hang around in the alley out back or the nearby corners and doorways without raising too much suspicion, texting Amber to let her know where to send any potential customers. 

Good with the bad, though - it was also when the more volatile drinkers showed up. Most nights, she worked with a nineteen-year-old Scottish girl nearing the tail end of a year-long international college transfer, working evening hours for a bit of spending money while she attended classes toward her business degree during the day. The girl was fiery and, sometimes, when she was a little slow or jittery, Amber found herself on the wrong side of that temper, but she was exactly the type of person Amber wanted at her side when the drunks got riled up or rowdy, bets or friendly arguments tipping into fist fights and such. They kept a baseball bat beneath the bar, and the girl wasn’t afraid to use it, swinging it fearlessly as she waded in to brawling dock workers stacked three men deep, hollering at them all the while to put their dicks away and get the fuck out. 

One of the drunks who routinely came to blows with other patrons was also notoriously difficult to peel away from the bar at last call, and Amber had no idea why they didn’t just cut him off and ban him from coming back – he drank cheap beer, spoke almost exclusively in Spanish once he was a few pints in so she had no idea what he was saying, and had no interest in anything Seth was peddling, which made him a waste of time, money and effort, as far as she was concerned. Normally, the girl was able to needle him out the door, as long as she started making the suggestion early and consistently enough, but sometimes, he acted like he couldn’t hear her, or simply responded with slurred Spanish that neither of them could understand. 

“Should I get the bat?” Amber asked one night when he was particularly surly and stubborn, nursing a half-drunk beer well after last call. She gnawed at the inside of her cheek, watching him stare into the amber liquid, thinking about the bags she had watched Seth cutting up on the coffee table that afternoon.

“Nah,” the girl shook her head, reaching for a slip of paper with a scrawled phone number pinned amongst the bottles on the shelves with the photos of patrons who had been banned from the premises. “The little’n will come collect ‘im.”

Amber had no idea what that meant, but if it got him the fuck out the door so she could get back to the apartment as soon as possible, she was all for it. With any luck, Seth would be out, and she could cut herself a little taste from one of the bags. Or, if he was there, maybe he would be in a good mood, and she would get lucky, anyway. 

Frustratingly, twenty-five minutes later, the man was still there, and although he had taken his beer down the hallway toward the bathrooms, he showed no signs of leaving. Amber, grinding her teeth where she leaned with her elbows on the bar, contemplating whether it was worth a call to Seth to see if he would send someone around to evict their stubborn guest, glanced up as the door swung open, and was already shaking her head before she even made out the visitor in the murky lighting.

“We’re closed,” she called, and then, with a scoff, as she rounded the bar and realised, closer, that she was talking to a kid who couldn’t have been more than a few days over sixteen. “And I don’t care how much you paid for your fake ID – you’re not fooling anybody, kiddo.”

The boy looked at her, and for a moment, it reminded her of the way that Justin looked at her, these days. No longer with the undiluted, rosy-lensed adoration that he had held for her as a child, although some of that still lingered, under the right circumstances. The boy’s glance, all at once, assessed and recognised her. Not for who she was – there was something familiar about the set of his shoulders and the shapes and planes of his features, although not enough to place him as anyone she recalled meeting before – but he saw what she was. Normally, in Amber’s experience, this was followed by an abrupt shuttering, withdrawing any further consideration, but it didn’t come. For most people, she was below their notice. Looking back at him, the hands curled loosely into fists at his sides, as if that was their default position, and the shadow of bruises at the bridge of his nose and his temple, she thought he probably was, too. 

“You called me.”

Amber snorted, nerves and patience frayed with delayed need, and reached to take the boy’s elbow and physically steer him back toward the door, when the girl returned from the storeroom.

“Aye,” she called, the tone of her voice suggested familiarity. She cocked her head toward the rear hallway. “Your da’s back there. I can unlock the back door, if it’s easier to get him out that way?”

The boy shook his head, moving toward the bar, where he collected the set of keys that the girl offered, coerced from the man or fished from his pocket while he was unaware, and headed to the hallway behind it as if it were routine, while Amber followed at a distance, confused.

“It’s alright,” the boy said. “His truck’s out front, anyway.”

Amber watched the boy approach the man, his manner practiced but not confident. Although the man was slumped in the corner between the phone box and the fire exit, the mostly empty glass in his hand dangerously close to tipping beer all over his boots or being dropped entirely, the boy remained cautious, palming the keys as he spoke to the man in low, calm words that she couldn’t quite make out. He gained a grunt in response, but no action, and persisted, taking a step closer. Faster than she would have expected the man to have been able to move in normal circumstances, let alone in his current state, he lashed out, swinging the glass at the boy. Apparently anticipating an attack, the boy stepped back, the beer splashing across the front of his shirt but the glass missing his face by more than a foot, and the man pressed his uncoordinated attack, one ill-aimed hand snatching the boy partially by the jaw and half by the throat to shove him backwards against the opposite wall, the glass raised menacingly overhead. 

Amber flinched, but didn’t move any closer as the man leaned into the boy’s face. 

“I’m not leaving my _fucking truck_.”

“It’s OK, Dad,” the boy said, tone deliberately even, if not a little strained, his eyes on the glass and his hands by his sides, despite that the rough grip tightened on his throat. “I’ve got your keys. We’ll take your truck.”

They stood like that, for a long moment, neither moving or speaking, and Amber thought maybe she should grab the baseball bat, after all, but when she turned toward the bar, the girl, standing beside her, shook her head, holding up a subtle hand to signal that they should wait. Sure enough, as if suddenly drained by the surge of action, the aggression drained from the man. The hand brandishing the glass swung down to his side, exhausted, and the boy reached to catch the glass as it slipped from his grasp, catching the man by the shoulder with his other hand when he stumbled back. With one arm tucked around the man’s waist, and angry red welts across his throat, the boy guided his father, stumbling, down the hallway, pausing only to hand back the glass, which the girl took to the trough sink to wash, suggesting, 

“Amber, would you help with the door, chick?”

Keeping some distance, Amber moved to hold the door open wide enough for the boy to steer the drunken man through, although it took two attempts, his boot catching on the doorjamb the first time. Outside, a vaguely familiar Jeep Wrangler was parked on the opposite side of the street, a pretty blonde girl sitting behind the steering wheel, waiting and watching, as the boy half-dragged his father to the truck parked by the corner, the tray full of messily stowed tools and equipment stamped with _DE LA CRUZ CONTRACTING_ in faded letters on the back gate. The girl blinked at Amber, her expression registering recognition, but Amber had no recollection of ever having seen her before.

As she lingered in the doorway, watching the boy awkwardly manoeuvre the man’s slack and uncooperative limbs in through the passenger door of the truck, picking at her nailbeds to distract herself from the way her insides twisted with increasing demand for satisfaction, Amber found herself calling out before the words had even fully formed in her head.

“Hey,” she said, and the boy, having managed to close the door and secure his father inside the truck, paused as he circled around the back of the tray. “Your parents probably don’t ever tell you this, but-“ she found herself hesitating, feeling guilty, somehow, and stupid for it. “-you’re a good kid.”

The boy blinked at her, his expression perfectly still, then, with a nod to the girl waiting in the Jeep, climbed into the truck and left, the Wrangler following close behind. 

~

Months after that night, and thirteen days since Justin had disappeared from the apartment, along with a pocketful of Seth’s cash, Amber stumbled as she dumped an armload of items onto the conveyor belt at the Walplex. It was all she could do to focus enough to identify a sunny shade of blonde as the girl behind the register paused in the middle of a giggle and peered at her, concerned. Amber thought, distractedly, that it was probably the three packets of cold and flu medication, strewn amongst the random assortment of snack foods, tampons and candy bars that drew her attention. No one else amongst the shoppers who had given her wide berth had commented on the purple-black crescent of swelling underneath her left eye. 

“Did you find everything you need?” the girl asked, politely, as she began to ring through the items, placing them into a shopping bag. Amber waved a distracted, trembling hand, dismissing the question. She had no idea how long it had been since she had entered the store – why weren’t there any _fucking_ clocks in this place? – and Seth was waiting in the car. 

The girl glanced at the pinprick bruises that tracked the lines of the veins beneath the papery pale skin of her hands, as she reached for the last package of medication, and scanned it through without comment. Most of the time, the cashiers got uppity and tried to tell her she was limited to one packet without presenting ID, but the girl simply smiled at her, the expression polite, but her eyes sort of dark and sad. 

“That’s twenty-four eighty, please.”

Amber dug into the pocket of her jeans, barely clinging to her narrow hips, and tugged free the crumpled twenty-dollar bill Seth had given her. Numbly, she blinked at the note, and then at the total displayed on the register screen. The girl bit her lip, her gaze soft and apologetic. 

“Um,” Amber shook her head, as if she might be able to shake free a coherent thought. “I guess I’ll just leave the tampons.”

The girl’s lips parted, and she seemed about to say something, when someone spoke from behind her.

“It’s alright. I got it.”

Amber narrowed her eyes as she realised that a boy had been leaning on the edge of the girl’s station just over her shoulder. Tall and solid, dressed in designer jeans and an aqua blue varsity jacket like the one Justin seemed to spend his whole life wearing, he plucked a black leather wallet from his pocket and slipped out a credit card. Casting one last glance at Amber, as if she might protest, the girl finalised the sale, allowing the boy to swipe his card.

“You hear much from Justin lately?” the boy asked, and Amber blinked at him, trying to place the familiarity of his blue eyes and sandy, dark blonde hair, the fullness of his cheeks and the lopsided slant of his smile.

She came up entirely blank.

“Who did you say you are?”

The boy smirked, sweeping her with an up and down glance, from her unkempt, wild tresses to her tattered sneakers, and slid the credit card back into his wallet as the sale went through and her receipt began to print. He winked at her, and somewhere deep underneath the thick, heavy warmth of the haze that enveloped her, she felt the tiny echo of an instinctual shiver. 

“Have a nice day, huh?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologise for the behemoth of a chapter - Amber's early life ended up rolling on in much more detail than I originally planned, until this chapter became longer than any of the others so far. 
> 
> Thank you to comfortwriter28 for persevering with reviewing such a long chapter, and for reminding me that I'm the only one who knows what's going on in my head, so maybe clearly identifying characters makes more sense :)
> 
> Next up is a Justin instalment, following on from his arrest in 2x12 and his time in juvenile detention. 
> 
> Thank you, as always, for reading and commenting x


	12. Juvie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little glimpse at Justin's time in juvenile detention

It was a strange comfort to be arrested with Bryce. 

Even after he had spent the entire day launching a coordinated attack on the other boy, assaulting his defences on the stand in court, trapping and disarming his stealth sniper at what Scott told them was called the Hobo Hotel, and firebombing his last remaining hideout with a brutally frank witness statement about the night of Jessica’s party; Justin still found himself somehow relieved to be sitting next to his former best friend at the sheriff’s station. After shedding every piece of protective armour Bryce had ever provided him and throwing it all at the boy’s feet, he felt raw and exposed in a way that he hadn’t felt in years. And although it helped, knowing that there were people standing behind him, prepared to steady him if he stumbled – Jessica, Zach, Clay, the Jensens, even Alex – the familiar presence by his side, no matter how stiffly Bryce sat or how obviously he attempted to shuffle along the bench seat to put more distance between them, offered a measure of residual comfort that Justin was grateful for. 

Those moments outside of the courthouse had been hard. Justin had never been the strong one – not in the heroic way that Clay was, stepping forward when everyone around him hesitated. And although it was hardly the first time he had been taken into custody, and despite that Lainie had cautioned him that this may be the outcome of his testimony and his police report, Justin felt that familiar involuntary jolt of terror across his nervous system. He was assaulted by dozens of overlapping memories of faceless authorities dragging him from the grubby couch or the dirty back seat of a car when he had been a child, sleeping or waiting for his mother to return, from an alleyway behind a hotel or a supermarket in Oakland where they would wait for the unsold food for the day to be thrown into the dumpsters, from a narrow cot in a church basement or a street corner that was relatively safe to pick up tricks but difficult to scatter from when the patrol car rounded the bend. 

It was all he could do to tell Jessica it was OK.

He had no idea when he would see anyone he cared about again. 

Bryce had paused outside of the sheriff’s cruiser, speaking urgently to one of his lawyers, scowling when the sheriff’s deputy insisted that they step aside so that he could load Bryce into the back seat beside Justin. Justin could practically feel the heat of the other boy’s anger irradiating from him, like a barely controlled blaze, threatening to leap beyond its confines and tear through everything and everyone around them. Bryce stared steadfastly forward, the blue eyes behind his horn-rimmed glasses never straying toward the reporters or onlookers outside of the vehicle. Justin thought, in a desperate attempt to distract himself, that the glasses looked even more out of place on Bryce than the simple, plastic-rimmed pair he had caught Monty wearing to summer school, and if he had a choice, he would rather the other boy be sitting next to him in the back of the cruiser right now. He was a fucking asshole, but at least he owned it, most of the time, and instead of stewing and seething with righteous betrayal, punishing Justin with suffocating, silent tension, Monty would have just turned and headbutted Justin in the face like Bryce clearly wanted to.

“Are you happy now?” Bryce hissed at him under the clamour of voices as the sheriff’s deputies climbed into the front seat. The other boy didn’t look at him, as if he might be able to force Justin off of the plane of existence if he simply concentrated on it hard enough. 

“No, man,” Justin whispered back, staring down at the navy suit he had borrowed from Clay. “I’m really not.”

Bryce didn’t speak to him again after that. 

Lainie had reassured him, before he had taken the stand, that if he was taken into custody, he should simply ask politely for his legal representation and say nothing further until she arrived. It was a small comfort, to have a simple instruction to follow. Especially when, less than an hour after being brought into the sheriff’s station and handcuffed to opposite ends of a bench to wait for processing, Bryce’s parents arrived with two lawyers. From the corner of his eye, Justin could see the crooked smile that tugged at one corner of Bryce’s mouth, and feel the tension sliding off of him. It took less than twenty minutes of urgent, indignant demands and chastisement, punctuated by confident, precise legalise, a flurry of paperwork and, finally, payment of bail on a black American Express card, for a deputy to come and free Bryce from his restraints. 

Justin half-expected a smug, parting barb from the other boy, set his jaw and braced for it, but Bryce paid him no mind whatsoever, crossing swiftly to his parents, rubbing his wrist as his father patted him on the shoulder, a stunted display of comfort. Justin couldn’t help one last glance as his best friend for over a decade left the station, cocooned by protection and privilege, and found Nora looking back at him. Her expression was complex, but there was a softness there, a shade of sympathy, that made Justin’s gut twist with guilt as he looked away. 

Deputy Standall was standoffish but not unkind, moving him to an interview room once one freed up, and bringing him a plastic cup of water while he waited. Lainie arrived not long after – without Clay, thank fuck, Justin didn’t think he could bear the other boy’s painfully unguarded expression of despair – and armed with stacks of paperwork and pre-prepared arguments and compromises. Justin didn’t understand most of what she discussed with Sheriff Daughtry, but he got the gist of it. His mother, predictably, was nowhere to be found, and despite that the Jensens were willing to pay his bail – which made Justin’s throat feel tight and prickly – he could only be released into the custody of a legal guardian. 

In the absence of one, he would be transferred to juvenile hall to await his court date and an opportunity to enter his plea. 

_Guilty_ , Justin wanted to interject, despite knowing this was neither the time nor place, nor the correct step in the process. _Fucking guilty. Can we just get on with it, please?_

“Try not to be nervous, Justin,” Lainie said, when the Sheriff stepped out to schedule his transport. She looked at him evenly, empathetically, in a way that made him feel warm but unsettled him with its unfamiliarity. He couldn’t come up with a single memory of his mother looking at him with so much trust and openness, so much care and promise. “I’m going to push for your plea to be entered as soon as possible, and we’re actively searching for your mother.” Her eyes softened as she watched him bite his lip. “We’ll keep looking for ways to get you released into temporary care in the meantime. And if you need anything at all, you just call me, OK?”

It felt like terrifyingly little and overwhelmingly too much to be offered, all at once. 

“OK,” Justin nodded. “I will. Thank you.”

~

Justin had spent time in temporary housing, group homes, foster care and shelters scattered across California, but he had never been in juvenile detention, and although he tried to uphold his promise to Lainie not to be nervous, underneath his attempt at a stoic expression – which he wasn’t entirely sure he achieved – he was terrified. 

Kids he had met in Oakland spoke about their time in juvie, and it was almost impossible to tell what was truth and what was fiction, either inflated to make them appear tougher than they were in a pre-emptive attempt to persuade anyone who might have considered them a target to think otherwise, or simply imagined, memory distorted by drugs or cross-pollinated with their time in psychiatric facilities, or the unknowable result of any one of the range of mental health conditions he witnessed amongst the human detritus that crowded the gutters and shelters of the city. They spoke of violent attacks, kids stabbing and strangling one another over minor disagreements and transgressions, gang warfare and random attacks as they jumped in new members through demonstrations of violence against whoever happened to be unlucky enough to wander unawares into their game, sexual assaults and rape, amongst inmates and at the hands of corrections officers, drugs and weapons and all manners of insanity. 

Mind swimming with images from movies and television shows, Justin did his best to be quiet, polite and obedient. The building was clinical and cold – the air-conditioning was turned up far higher than he would have liked – but otherwise, he found that it was not all that different from a school, with administration desks and posters on the walls, albeit the staff were often behind protective screens and the posters were about lockdown rules and prohibited paraphernalia rather than extracurricular clubs and fundraisers. A portly lady in a uniform unlocked his handcuffs so that he could complete the admission paperwork, and then gave him a bag to put his clothes and any belongings in. 

Showering wasn’t so bad – it wasn’t all that different to the showers in the locker rooms at Liberty, although the water was freezing and it was a lot quieter, no one boasting about what they had done with their girlfriend or one of the other guy’s mother’s last night – and, before he was allowed to put on the uniform they gave him, he was required to perform the squat, spread and cough manoeuvre he had seen in pixelated footage on shows like _Cops_ and _Intervention_. There was something weirdly clinical about it, the correctional officer’s expression flat and disinterested, and Justin didn’t find himself feeling quite as humiliated as he had expected as he tugged on a too-big pair of starchy white boxer shorts, a white t-shirt that almost swallowed him whole, followed by orange overalls, and slipped his feet into a pair of socks and rubber sandals. 

By the time he was processed, Justin had missed dinner, but he didn’t think he could have stomached anything anyway, anxiety chewing at his insides, the subtle creep of early withdrawal slinking in its shadow. He could feel the attention of other boys on him as the officer led him to his cell, and made a point not to meet any of their looks. He felt exposed in a way that he hadn’t in years, not even when he had arrived in Oakland, knowing no one and nothing. At least that had been his choice, and all of the choices that followed were his, as well. He could run or fight - run, obviously - he could take risks or keep his head down, he could stick to safe routes and patterns, and avoid people he learned to be dangerous. Here, he was trapped, truly and physically, penned in with people who had proven themselves unworthy of participating in polite society, and he had neither his own freedom of choice, or the protection of Bryce, to rely upon. 

Justin set his jaw and tried to press down the swell of apprehension. He trusted Lainie when she said that she would do her best to get him out of here as soon as possible. All he had to do was keep his head down and stay out of anyone’s way in the meantime. 

His cell consisted of four concrete walls, concrete floor, and two beds that folded down from the walls on metal frames. The mattresses were a couple of inches thick and covered in vinyl – the pillows much the same. He was allocated one blanket – scratchy, starchy, but clean – and there was one shared toilet with a sink built into the cistern, plumbed into the far corner. The door was steel, on automated sliding fixtures, with a small window at head height, and a narrow lockable slot at waist height, which at first he guessed was for passing meal trays, but later learned was for him to put his back to the door and feed his hands through so that the correctional officer could apply handcuffs from the other side before letting him out. 

The first night, Justin had figured he wouldn’t sleep, and he didn’t, but not because of the anxiety and dread. The lights never switched off, and all night, the correctional officers played music over the intercom, classic rock and twangy country, the kind of music that his mother used to listen to when she was in a good mood, dancing around the apartment, cleaning or rearranging their scant furniture. Even that wasn’t enough to drown out the voices around him, the other boys talking and joking, taunting each other and singing to themselves, some snoring but not many, not even as the hours crept past midnight and into the morning. Justin had never slept somewhere so noisy, not shelters or squats, not even that one burned out warehouse right by the railway tracks where freight trains had rattled by every twenty minutes like clockwork. 

Justin’s cellmate – a quiet, dark haired boy who eyed him but offered nothing by way of greeting – was equally disinterested in showing him the ropes, but as it turned out, the routine was simple and repetitive:

1\. **Exercise** – usually this meant yard time, dodgeball, basketball, or just an opportunity to go outdoors. He spent the first morning walking the perimeter of the yard, familiarising himself with the layout and its occupants. 

2\. **Breakfast** – powdered eggs, baked beans, wholemeal toast some days, flavourless porridge on others, nothing like Lainie’s pancakes ( _fucking amazing_ ).

3\. **School** – mostly this consisted of packets of worksheets and outdated text books, which they worked through at their own pace while a disinterested adult supervised from the desk at the front of the room.

4\. **Lunch** – sandwiches, sometimes meat and sometimes just PB&J, powdery mac and cheese or stodgy pasta with tomato sauce, sometimes rice and beans, or noodles and vegetables.

5\. **Exercise** – Back outside, where Justin watched a few of the other boys play basketball, more aggressively than he had ever played at Liberty, a few catching a stray elbow to the ribs or face, but there was undeniable talent amongst them which made the games almost enjoyable to watch, if he could push away any awareness of the constant simmering tension.

6\. **School** – back to their desks, maybe for some math or history, and Justin realised that, despite missing months of school while he was in Oakland, he was miles ahead of some of the other boys, one or two of whom struggled with basic comprehension and reading. It was sort of depressing to contemplate. 

7\. **Exercise** – he wasn’t quite ready to ask to play, but he lingered at the edge of the basketball court, clapping along with some of the other boys to congratulate players on particularly well-landed shots.

8\. **Group therapy** – this was voluntary, and mostly consisted of sitting in a group with the other boys, loosely led by a counsellor, and talking about whatever came to them at the time, ranging from complaints about one another and the food and the music choices from the night before, to stories about abuse and neglect and violence that made Justin’s stomach churn.

9\. **Free time** – some of the boys played cards, or watched television, sometimes the correctional officers put on a movie for them, never anything above PG-13, but if they didn’t want to watch, they could ask for a pen and some paper, and write letters to their friends or family. Justin started to write a letter to his mother, on the third night, but couldn’t finish, and folded it into thirds, tucking it underneath his thin mattress. 

10\. **Dinner** – was about the most comparable meal served to what Justin might have expected from the cafeteria at Liberty, hotdogs and mashed potatoes, sloppy joes, enchiladas – meats and casseroles that were easy to heat and serve to dozens of hungry teenage boys. It wasn’t great, but it was food, and Justin wolfed it down while he could. 

11\. **Exercise** – by the end of the second day, Justin got the impression that the insistent exercise schedule was a thinly veiled attempt to run down the energy and aggression of teenage boys who had nowhere else to turn it other than internally or at one another

12\. **Bed** \- lights on, chatter constant, and a rolling playlist of Jimi Hendrix, Led Zepplin, Bob Marley, the Doors, Willy Nelson, Pink Floyd, Johnny Cash, Elvis, the Rolling Stones, and so on, until they all blended together into an oddly comforting sort of white noise, and he gave in to exhaustion. 

Justin had never lived anywhere so structured – everyone doing the same thing, together, at the same time, for the same allocation of an hour here, then an hour over there. It was comforting, in some ways, to always know where he needed to be and what he needed to be doing, because it eliminated any reliance on anyone else, and allowed him to avoid the attention of other boys on his block. As far as he could tell, there was voluntary segregation amongst the group, but it was unclear to him whether it was based on gang affiliations prior to arrest or simply a matter of race. Sometimes he sat by himself during meals, and other times other boys would sit with him, but he was wary of conversation, jaded by the smirks aimed his way in the bathroom blocks by boys who offered to trade him blow-jobs for extra food or protection, half joking but also sort of not, and cautious of the sidelong looks that sometimes strayed his way in the cafeteria or recreation spaces. Not being affiliated or even friendly with anyone else meant his days were quiet and uncomplicated, but it also left him exposed, an easy target for boys who wanted to prove themselves to a gang or simply thought he might have something they could use for their own gain, even if that thing was nothing more than a victorious fist fight. 

Boredom and tension were wearing on him by the afternoon of the third day, when a correctional officer had called out to him from the corner of the basketball court, where he was watching a game.

“Foley. Phone call.”

He had seen Lainie the day prior, and wasn’t expecting her back until the day after, and the only person he ever called was Jess, in the evenings during free time, while the other boys watched _Spongebob_ or _The Clone Wars_. Sometimes she didn’t answer – her father watched over her protectively, as always, and Justin couldn’t even find it in him to be angry about it – and sometimes she was a little bit guarded on the phone, but that didn’t matter to him. Hearing her voice was what meant the most. She talked about school and their friends and her brothers, and it wasn’t like they were before – back before everything got broken – but it was still the best part of his day. 

Wary of the attention that having his name shouted across the yard drew, Justin crossed quickly back to the building, and to the bank of phones mounted on the wall of the shared recreation space, one blinking with a waiting call.

“Hello?”

At first, there was no response, and in that moment, Justin’s heart seemed to lurch up into his throat, choking the question before it could seep past his lips. _Ma?_

“Hey, Justy.”

He froze, the reaction entirely involuntary and irrational, considering that the voice was miles away, on the other end of the telephone line, and not right beside him, the way that it felt. 

Bryce.

Justin clenched his jaw, his teeth grinding hard enough to send shivers of discomfort across his nerve endings. He could hear the smirk in the other boy’s voice, and could picture his expression perfectly, the glint in his blue eyes, the relaxed slouch, the total comfort of having precisely zero consequence and accountability for anything he had ever done in his entire life. 

“What do you want?” Justin bit out, although he knew that was what the other boy was hoping for, the reason he paused after the greeting, waiting for Justin to come to him, to ask for what he wanted, like he always did. 

“Just seeing how you’re holding up, buddy,” Bryce answered, all casual friendliness, as if he was not calling Justin in juvenile detention while he was out on bail for the rape that Justin had accused him of. Justin could practically see him, lounging on the couch in the pool house or in the leather chair behind the desk in his father’s office, feet propped up, secure and comfortable in a careless kind of way that most other people never experienced in their whole lifetime. 

This time, Justin held his silence, refusing to give Bryce the satisfaction of a response. Even more than an attempt to spite the other boy, it was a deliberate choice to deny his own instinctive reaction – to obey, to please, to allow Bryce to take what he wanted and hurt him as he did it, because the temporary sting meant protection and safety and love, all of those things that heroin had never offered and were infinitely more addictive. Like the junkie he was, his body railed against him, his tongue itching to say something, anything, that would keep Bryce on the line, would keep the light of his attention shining upon him, even though it made him feel disgusted to crave it. He had done worse things, for less.

“Look, you don’t have to say anything,” Bryce continued, although there was an edge underneath his reasonable tone, betraying his frustration at Justin’s refusal to participate in the game. “I guess I just wanted to tell you that I don’t blame you for what you did. Despite everything, you’ll always be my brother.” He paused, and Justin felt like his heart was on the verge of leaping free of his body, so strong was the ingrained drive to grasp hold of the offer to accept an apology he hadn’t even made, he didn’t _want_ to make, when the other boy, his voice a complex mixture of commanding and pleading, asked, “Right?”

_Right?_

“Bryce,” Justin said, and had to take a breath immediately afterwards, to hold back all of the words that wanted to come tumbling out behind it, selecting only the two he wanted. “Fuck you.”

On the other end of the line Bryce sighed.

“Yeah, alright, Justy,” he said, unable to resist one last infuriatingly placating offering.

With an unsteady hand, Justin reached and pressed the receiver button, closing his eyes as the handset still pressed to his ear went suddenly, achingly silent. 

~

The first week was the hardest. 

The routine was fine – boring, repetitive, enforced by the corrections officers, but not difficult. 

Detoxing while participating in it was the hard part. 

Without Sheri’s unique brand of tough love, Justin was left to grit it out on his own, his cellmate clueless about the cause of his symptoms and unwilling to get involved in any event. Justin sweated through fevers and goosebumps, his insides twisting and railing against him, cramps and vomiting proving any attempt to enjoy the meals they were served temporary and futile. His constantly hammering heart-rate exhausted him to frustrated tears as it thundered in his ears, drowning out the now familiar music, keeping him from sleep. 

In the tiny snatches of rest that he did manage to scrape together, in between diving toward the toilet in the back of the cell and writhing as his body alternately shrieked at him with need and rejected everything he offered it, Justin was assaulted by nightmares, stretched and distorted to a grotesque level of horror he couldn’t recall his subconscious ever having attacked him with before. 

The smell of a cherry-flavoured air freshener, a little red tree dangling from the rear view mirror of an unfamiliar car in a familiar back-alley in Oakland, the insistent hand on the base of his skull, even as he choked and tried to pull back, and then the dizzy, dark, tight confines of the scuffle in the back seat, shoving at the hands that tugged at his jeans, loose around his narrow hips, trying to kick free, twisting desperately, clawing with dirty, bitten-down fingernails, slamming his head back against the window with a dull thud, and then nothing, just heavy breathing and numbness and that image of Bryce standing over him in Jessica’s bedroom doorway seared over the top of everything. 

Lying on Clay’s bed, staring up at the slope of the roof and the drawings and posters pinned there, feeling that familiar slipping sensation, that gentle backward freefall, and then a tinge of panic, because he kept sliding, down past the point where he normally floated, warm and comfortable as if suspended in water, down further and further, darkness crowding in, his limbs powerless and numb, his stomach ejecting its contents only as far as his throat, where it lodged, thick and viscous, and a pressure building in his chest as his lungs began to ache, and then burn, and then shriek for oxygen that wouldn’t come. 

A hazy image through the blur of tears, large, rough hands on him and his own paralysed at his sides, his voice trapped in his throat if he had had even been capable of the language to articulate his pain, his heart pounding in his chest so hard and loud that it felt as though it should be shaking the whole room around them, and over the man’s shoulder, in the bedroom doorway, his mother, very still and quiet, her arms full of mismatched shopping bags from the goodwill store, her face pale and her expression slipping from stricken to distant, as if she were some other place, a long time ago, and not there at all.

Justin shuddered in the shared shower block, ignoring the banter of the other boys as he scrubbed the sweat and clinging memory from his skin, reminding himself that he wasn’t in those places any more, vigorously rubbing the feverish goosebumps from his flesh beneath the lukewarm water. He had survived. He had climbed from the backseat of that car and stumbled back to the shelter and showered, and survived. He had gasped through the vomit that spilled from his throat as Alex yanked him over onto his side and colour and light had burst across his consciousness again, and he had survived. His mother had woken him up the next morning, after the man had left for work, and had led him down the stairs and out of the house to a waiting taxi, bags of their belongings already stacked in the back seat, her engagement ring abandoned on the kitchen counter. They had survived.

And he would survive this.

Detoxing was hard, and the routine of the facility wore on him, but Justin always looked forward to Lainie visiting.

She came by every few days, letting him know at the end of each visit when she would be back. She was still managing her own caseload of corporate clients, but she made certain to keep Justin’s case at the top of her priority list, personally filing every document and following up every process possible in an attempt to move things along. She took it as a personal and professional affront that Bryce was yet to spend a single second facing any type of retribution for his crime, and worked tirelessly to make sure not only that Justin’s own punishment was minimised – which made him feel both grateful and unworthy - but also to ensure that Justin stayed connected with his life back home.

“These are from Zach,” she said at one visit, lifting her leather satchel into her lap and tugging free a small, thick stack of photographs from a miniature sprocket printer, secured by an elastic band. She placed them on the table, continuing to search through her bag as Justin reached for them. “And these are from Clay.” A selection of well-thumbed _Alien Killer Robots_ comics. “And this one is from Jessica.” She slid a familiar, brightly coloured string of tourist snapshots encased in letters spelling “Oakland” across the table to him, the edges of the postcard worn soft. Justin, thumbing through the selection of photos that Zach had printed from his iphone photo-roll, paused and reached to touch the corner of the familiar postcard. 

“How are you finding the school work?” Lainie asked, “I’ve heard the subjects can be a little rudimentary, but you know you can always enrol in summer school to catch up, and I’m sure that your teachers at Liberty would be happy to share packets from their current curriculum to help you keep in touch with what your classmates are covering.”

Justin smiled, shaking his head.

“It’s fine,” he assured her, amused and bewildered that this woman that he had only known for a few weeks was concerned about the level of education he was receiving whilst in juvenile detention, when no one had ever cared or even asked about his grades in the last decade that he had spent in the education system. He raised his shoulder in a casual shrug. “I’m a little behind from being away, anyway-“ despite his attempt to phrase it as if he had simply taken a vacation, he saw the way her expression tightened, just a little. “-so it’s good to have the chance to catch up.”

Lainie nodded pragmatically, and didn’t push any further, pressing ahead to the next topic.

“I know you’ve been speaking with Jessica on the phone, and I’m sure she’s keeping you up to date, but I thought I should let you know that her first hearing date is tomorrow,” Lainie watched him for any reaction, and Justin dropped his gaze to the postcard on the table between them, and the little snapshot amongst the photographs in his hand, Jessica in her cheerleading uniform, wearing red heart-shaped sunglasses and strings of pink and red plastic beaded necklaces, grinning and popping her leg beneath a Dollar Valentine banner, as if she had just been kissed in a romantic movie.

“Will I need to testify again?” Justin asked, determined to do whatever he could to bolster her case, despite that the idea of being back in that stand, of explaining the details of what had happened that night over again, sent a tiny tremor of apprehension through his already jackhammering heart-rate. He would do whatever was necessary to help Jess, regardless of what the consequences might be for him, and no matter how much it terrified him to do it. 

Lainie shook her head reassuringly.

“I don’t think so. You’ve already given sworn testimony and filed a police report which corroborates Jessica’s statement. There’s no indication that the defence plan to call you for cross-examination.”

The defence. 

Bryce.

Justin swallowed hard, his tongue feeling thick and cottony in his mouth.

“Is there anything else that I can get you, Justin?” Lainie asked, studying his face, no doubt noticing the sweat that clung to his hairline and the tremor in his hands. She smiled gently. “They won’t let me bring you any junk food, but if there’s anything else you need?”

He didn’t want to ask. She was incredibly kind, more than he deserved, and it felt terribly ungrateful to even consider asking, but he couldn’t help it, although he couldn’t bring himself to look at her as he enquired,

“Has there been any word from my mom?”

Lainie’s shoulders sunk with disappointment, and part of him knew that it was because she couldn’t give him the answer that he wanted, but another part of him couldn’t help but wonder if actually, it was in reaction to his reliance on a woman who he had not seen in weeks, who, as far as he knew, could be dead, or could think the same of him, for all the interest that she showed in his wellbeing.

“Not yet, sweetheart,” she said, gently. “But we’re still looking. We won’t give up.”

He nodded quickly, frustrated at the pang of disappointment that flickered in his chest, when he had known not to expect anything else.

“I know,” he said. “Thank you.”

Justin smiled, aiming for his disarming trademark grin, and knew that he had fallen short when she smiled back at him, sadly. 

~

On the fourteenth day, Justin received another visitor. 

Normally, Lainie pre-booked her visits, slotting him into her schedule like all of her other clients, and he knew what days and roughly what time to expect her. She always came when she said she would, and that was strangely but undeniably comforting. Juvie offered more structure than Justin had ever experienced in his life, but it was clinical and impersonal. They met his needs and did so practically, with no fanfare or particular care, just a flat obligation to maintain his survival. Seeing Lainie was like a spot of sunshine. She always smiled, even when she didn’t have good news, or didn’t really have any news, because even when things were stalled and she didn’t have any particular updates to give him, she never cancelled and always kept their appointments, using the time to check in with him, to make sure that he was safe and well, that he didn’t need anything. 

It made Justin feel like crying, sometimes. 

When the corrections officer escorted him to the visitor’s area and he recognised a familiar tan and blue plaid shirt, at a table in the far corner, mostly, he just felt confused. 

Justin approached the table with some caution. There were plenty of guys in his cell block who frightened him a hell of a lot more than Monty ever had, but that didn’t mean that he should treat the boy with any less caution. This was the person who had strung up a blow-up doll on Jessica’s porch, smashed up Tony’s car and the Baker’s store and the photography lab, smuggled a dead rat into Zach’s sports bag and run Clay off the road in the middle of the night. Who, although he denied it, had probably broken into Clay’s car and stolen the box of polaroids from the back seat, secreting them away somewhere, maybe even destroying them, so that girls like Jess, who had been victimised and preyed upon and taken advantage of, had even less proof than she did, and even less chance at justice than they all hoped she would win. 

Monty looked up at him as he rounded the edge of the table, and somehow, looked almost as surprised to see Justin as the other boy was to see him, as if maybe he expected the other boy to refuse to speak to him. Guilt hardened the line of his jaw, and his eyes turned almost immediately down toward the scratched and scarred tabletop as his shoulders dropped defensively and with a hesitation Justin wasn’t sure he had ever seen in the other boy before. 

“Hey,” Justin said, phrasing the greeting as a question, as he slid into the seat opposite the other boy. He watched Monty’s gaze flick over him, taking in the orange coveralls and the way that they hung from his unquestionably narrower frame, the sharper angles of his jaw and cheekbones, the blemishes from detox scattered amongst the fading violet shadow of bruises from getting caught up unintentionally in a scuffle in the cafeteria a week earlier, the utilitarian haircut they had given him, shearing his chestnut curls close to his scalp. Biting the inside of his lip, Monty looked away, as if Justin was too much to take in all at once, glancing over the other inmates in the room, sitting with their lawyers or their parents or their social workers, while he worked on affixing that familiar mask of impassivity back into place. 

“Hey,” he said finally, returning his gaze to Justin. Then, matter-of-factly, as he met his eye, “You kinda look like shit.”

Justin scoffed, somehow more amused than offended.

“I kinda do, yeah,” he agreed, and lifted his chin at the other boy. “You aren’t looking so pretty, yourself.”

It was a significant understatement. The sleeve of his shirt was rolled back to accommodate the bright blue plaster cast that encased his left arm from knuckles to elbow, and heavily applied medical tape was visible beneath the collar of the tee he wore underneath – Justin recognised the supportive treatment from the last time Zach had dislocated his knee on the basketball court. Behind his glasses, his freckles faded beneath the bluish-black that bloomed outward from his right eye socket, flecked with dark red nicks and cuts at the bridge of his nose, cheekbone and temple. There was tension in his posture – there almost always was – but there was a cautiousness to it, protecting injuries that Justin couldn’t see and could only guess at the extent of. 

Strangely, the one thing that stood out as unusual in the battle-zone of injuries was the purple bruising across the knuckles of his right hand. When Monty fought, he normally walked away relatively unscathed, unleashing a hurricane of fury that worked almost as perfectly as a defensive barrier as it did an offensive manoeuvre, but there was only one person who was capable of wreaking the kind of devastation he was currently carrying. The same person Monty had never hit back, as far as Justin knew, in his whole life. Sensing his attention, the other boy slid his casted hand over to cover the bruises, his jaw flexing uncomfortably. 

“This is a solid three day’s work,” Monty muttered, look over his shoulder as a door slammed shut somewhere nearby. “Practically a fucking masterpiece, by my old man’s standards.”

Justin pressed down an involuntary shiver at the flatness in the other boy’s tone. Monty wasn’t exactly what he would call expressive – not outside of shades of anger, which he could have composed delicate and complex symphonies from, he was so articulate in its language – but there was something missing from him that Justin couldn’t quite identify. Confidence was something Monty had always projected but never truly felt, and Justin didn’t think that was it, but it was something that resided close to it. Despite his inability to identify it, its absence was unsettling, and Justin shifted in his seat, frowning. 

“Why are you here?” he had to ask. It was the obvious question, and one he was helpless to answer. 

Aside from Lainie, he hadn’t had any visitors. He spoke to Jess at least every other day – her father wouldn’t allow her to visit, and honestly, Justin didn’t want her to, not here, not when he was like this. Lainie told him, every time she came, that Clay wanted to see him, and every time, Justin requested that she ask him to wait. For what, exactly, he wasn’t sure. Until he felt worthy of the other boy’s care and concern? He would die in this place, first. Even considering his self-congratulatory phone call, Justin might have expected Bryce to show up before he ever would have guessed that Monty would make an appearance in the visitor’s centre. But then, the two of them were rarely mutually exclusive, and when Monty hesitated to answer, Justin’s suspicion swelled. 

He tried to keep his tone neutral, although he could feel his eyes narrowing slightly as he guessed, “Did Bryce send you?”

This time, Monty scoffed in unexpected amusement, and it was hollow and brittle.

“That would require him to talk to me,” he admitted, plainly, giving up more than Justin would have expected him to. 

They weren’t friends – had never been friends, not ever, not really – and they never would be, now, after everything that had happened between them, the harassment Monty had tortured them with, the betrayal Justin had dealt him in return, not directly, but even worse, this time, than what he had done when he had pulled the pin on that grenade of truth and battered them all with the shrapnel of what Bryce truly was. Monty and the other boys could – and for the most part, did – choose to bury their heads in the sand and pretend that what he had accused Bryce of that evening by the pool wasn’t true, but now that he had been charged with it, it was undeniable. And that stolen ignorance, no matter how wilful it had been, was Justin’s doing. He was a traitor amongst them, and they owed him nothing.

Even before any of that, before that terrible night at Jessica’s party, he and Monty had spent so long snapping at one another’s heels, campaigning for Bryce’s favour, until it had become second nature, something that they did out of necessity and habit, to feed Bryce’s expectations, blinkered to any other option but to continue battling one another. There was a time when neither would have ever considered giving up any hint of weakness to the other, especially when it came to Bryce, and Justin realised that, now, none of that mattered. He couldn’t have cared any less what got back to Bryce, or what Bryce thought of him and, with Justin irreparably severed from the other boy, Monty could finally give voice to those hesitations that neither of them had ever dared share before, knowing that Justin had no reason to take them any further. 

Eyeing the other boy, Justin had to wonder if the admission that Bryce had cut him off went some way to explaining the difference in Monty. It was hardly the first time. Monty regularly blundered over the barriers that Bryce laid out for him, not in spite of command but usually in a misguided attempt to do the best he could for the other boy. And even more so than Justin, he was accustomed to being punished for it. He was better than any of them, through practice alone, at weathering Bryce’s contempt and rejection. But things were different, now. Jess had mentioned that Scott’s parents had freaked out at the cancellation of the baseball season and immediately withdrawn him from Liberty, relocating halfway across the state to enrol him in the school that they had competed against in the previous year’s finals. Ramon was graduating, Jeff was gone, and Zach, who had never trusted Monty anyway, would never forgive his particularly cruel targeting of Alex over the past few months. 

And Justin was here. 

It was a position at least half of Monty’s own making, but Justin couldn’t help thinking of Hannah, then, and how alone she had been at the end.

“You told me that I didn’t need Bryce,” Monty said, at length, looking down at the bright blue plaster encasing his left arm. There was a hesitation in his voice, or at least a lack of the self-assuredness that had been there when Justin had originally raised the suggestion, all of those months ago in the construction lot while the sun rose over the hospital. Monty lifted his uninjured shoulder in a shrug. “I guess I wanted to see if that was true.”

He raised his head, meeting Justin’s gaze, and all at once, Justin knew that it wasn’t.

It might have been true for Justin. And maybe, at one time, it could have been true for Monty, if he had had the confidence in himself and his potential worth to others to take that risk, to put in the work, to open up and make himself vulnerable in a way he had only ever done for Bryce. 

But not now.

Monty saw in Justin what it cost to truly reject the friendship and protection of Bryce Walker. The answer to his question was written in the orange overalls that Justin had been wearing for weeks that Bryce had never had to, and probably never would. It was clear in the exhausted shadows slung beneath his eyes and in the gaunt hollows of his cheeks from the ravages of detoxing in a prison cell. He had seen it in the visitors’ log – only one name, other than his own, listed as having made the trip to this cold, unwelcoming place to see Justin. It was wrapped up in everything – this place, the charges, Justin’s guilty plea – he would always, for the rest of his life, be an accessory to felony sexual assault, everywhere he went, every job he applied for, every facility or service he signed up to, everywhere he lived and to everyone he met. And maybe Monty was worse – or at the very least, the same – but at least with Bryce’s grace and protection, he had a chance to pretend that he wasn’t. 

Maybe. 

It was better than no chance at all. Than rock bottom, the low and deserved plane that Justin currently inhabited, and that Monty had spent his entire life desperate to avoid. 

Justin had no answers for the other boy, no reassurances or alternatives, not this time. He felt bitterly guilty for it, because although it didn’t register in the other boy’s expression at all, he could only imagine the desperation that must have driven him here, to risk Bryce finding out that he had betrayed his trust in order to visit a boy who was not his friend and never had been, who had once suggested he might have a chance to be something other than what he was, but had been wrong. 

Monty shifted, and seemed like he might say something else, but thought better of it, turning to rise from his chair.

“Could I ask you to do something for me?” Justin asked, and Monty hesitated, his bruised hand on the scarred table top as he cocked his head. 

“I’m Bryce’s little faggot errand boy, remember?” he said, regurgitating the venom that Justin had poured down his throat that morning outside of the hospital in an attempt to sever any lingering hope of friendship, to save them both from the ache of what they couldn’t have, and spitting it in his face as he smiled, sharp and acidic. “Not yours.”

Justin took a breath. Maybe he deserved that. But he wasn’t going to be deterred. 

“Give back the polaroids,” he requested, pinning the other boy with an imploring look. “Get rid of the ones you’re in, I don’t care – just let the girls in those pictures have a chance to take control of what happened to them.”

For perhaps the first time in his life that Justin had ever witnessed, Monty looked contrite, but not for the reason that Justin suspected. 

“I didn’t lie,” the other boy said, and Justin felt instinctively that he wasn’t lying now, either, as he added, “Not about that.” He shrugged, plainly, with the slightest hint of apology. “I don’t have them.”

Justin thought of the expression on the other boy’s face that morning outside of the hospital, the way that something had seemed to break behind his eyes, something more delicate and precious to him than his devotion to Bryce, something that wounded him irreparably, in a way that Justin could never know or fully understand, as he took in the polaroid of Bryce assaulting who Justin now knew to have been Chloe Rice. 

Monty said and did and was a lot of horrible things, and in any other circumstance, Justin wouldn’t trust the other boy as far as he could throw him, but he accepted, with disappointment and finality, that he didn’t have the box of polaroids. 

“OK,” Justin said, his tone flattened with dejection. “I believe you.”

Monty looked at him for a long moment, his expression unreadable, and Justin wondered whether he had ever heard those three words in his entire life. 

Gingerly, although he tried to mask it with a casual stance, Monty stood. Justin half expected him to walk away without saying anything further, the unwanted answer to his question retrieved, his problems not halved but multiplied, and perhaps feeling uniquely raw and aching in a way that Justin had only ever felt when interacting at this level with Monty. When the boy lingered there, his fingertips skimming the scratches in the table top, Justin hesitated, uncertain what to expect. 

“I saw your Ma a few months back,” Monty said suddenly, as if determined to spit the words out before he thought better of it. His brow creased, puzzled, as his gaze flicked over the tabletop behind his glasses, even as Justin’s own eyes widened at the admission, having expected just about anything other than an anecdote about his mother. “It was kind of weird. She told me I was a good kid,” Monty shook his head, biting the inside of his cheek, then looked up at Justin. “I think she really meant to say it to you.”

Justin had no idea what to say to that, so he said nothing. 

Monty, apparently not expecting an answer in any event, didn’t wait for one, or offer anything further, simply turning away from the other boy without another word, and headed for the exit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to comfortwriter28 for the beta checking, feedback and chats, as always! I would very much recommend checking out The Call series, especially if you're a Justin fan.
> 
> So I originally pictured Justin's time in juvie to be really dark and horrible, because he comes out of it on the other side looking so rough, but when I researched (read: lurked on askreddit threads) what people's experiences were actually like, particularly in facilities in California, they seemed far more monotonous than anything. In the end, that meant that, even though Justin hardly had a whale of a time, it still turned out to be a little bit of a break from the neglect and abuse he is constantly battling. 
> 
> This was my first attempt at Lainie (one of my favourite characters) and also a little hark back to Joyride and the Clubhouse towards the end, so I hope both landed OK. 
> 
> We're back with Bryce for the next chapter, with the story of how he eventually managed to get his hands on Chloe's number. As usual, being a Bryce chapter, it is getting off to a slow start, but hopefully it won't be too long before it's finished and ready to post.
> 
> I hope you're keeping safe and well. Thank you very much for reading and commenting <3


	13. Study Group

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A speculative version of how Bryce managed to get Chloe's phone number from Zach.

Bryce found Justin and Monty in the library, sitting at a one of the rectangular study tables opposite Jeff.

“Well, congratulations,” he announced, satisfied when the two boys looked up, wide-eyed, like children caught drawing on the walls with crayons. “This is officially the last place I thought to look for you two boneheads.”

They looked at total odds, not only in this place – their varsity jackets glaring aqua blue amongst the dull shelves of books and reference materials – but sitting beside one another. Normally, they were like magnets, each of them constantly and naturally repelled by the other; although all it would take was for one of them to realise that they had the option to turn and face the other instead of steadfastly focussing on Bryce, for them to become inseparable. It was a risk he was constantly managing. Even now, they looked guilty, not for the fact that he had been searching for them for the last twenty minutes, but because they had been found, together, without him. Bryce supposed that the contrition that rounded their shoulders and averted their eyes was a consideration, but it didn’t go far to soothe his annoyance, particularly at Jeff – clearly both the reason for their unexpected location and the buffer facilitating their coexistence in his absence. 

“What are you even doing in here?”

Both Justin and Monty appeared reluctant to explain, which only served to heighten his suspicion. Justin was an open book, as always, his hesitation written all over his face, despite that he tilted his head down, as if Bryce might not notice. Justin had never had the capacity to hide anything he was feeling, least of all guilt, and it baffled Bryce that, with a mother like his and the way he had been raised by her, he had never learned such a simple survival tactic. His honesty and openness were frustratingly illogical, despite that it often meant he could trust that the other boy was incapable of hiding anything from him. 

On the other hand, Bryce had never considered Monty trustworthy. The boy rarely lied to him directly, which was just as well – he was shitty at it, far too cocky, every insincere word spoken as if he were daring the other person to challenge him - but he lied on Bryce’s behalf with an unquestioning willingness that most people probably would have found alarming. Even so, since he had learned that the other boy had hidden the fact that Chloe Rice was his neighbour, despite direct questioning, Bryce found himself increasingly distrustful of every hesitation and silence, wondering exactly what it was that the other boy was keeping from him, even in those moments when he simply appeared distracted or disinterested and not deliberately evasive. 

He resented being made to feel as if he was overreacting with paranoia almost as much as he hated knowing that the other boy was wilfully withholding something he wanted and not being able to confront him about it without tipping his own hand. 

Bryce had thought about shutting him out in retaliation. Monty could be a goddamn idiot, but his understanding of rejection was second only to his grasp of anger and violence. He would know, without having to be told, that he had been wrong. Probably, he wouldn’t realise what exactly he had or hadn’t done – usually, that had to be explained to him with a level of patience that Bryce found draining, as the other boy tried to protest that he had been acting in their interest. Instinctively, it was what he wanted to do. The lack of punishment – even of simple acknowledgement of his wrongdoing – felt like a scratch beneath his skin, minor but irritating. So far, though, Bryce hadn’t quite fathomed how to make it work in his favour. Accusing Monty of lying would require Bryce to acknowledge that he had something he wanted, and he was loathe to admit that to himself, let alone make it obvious to the other boy. And if he shut him out without explanation, simply to make himself feel better, it unsettled the other guys to be expected to follow his lead and turn away one of their own when they didn’t understand why – they wondered if he might do the same thing to them. 

Besides, he had the means to deal with Monty; he just had to secure it. 

His focus over the past weeks had been on Chloe. It alternately thrilled him – the tactics and strategy of the hunt – and frustrated him, because every failure to make progress highlighted the fact that, humiliatingly, he was the one giving chase. That could be fun, for sure, but he was far more accustomed to sprints than marathons, and really, it was only enjoyable if he was victorious, in the end. 

“I’ve got tutoring with Jensen in ten minutes,” Jeff offered, with that irritatingly disarming smile that melted girls and bolstered the guys. 

Bryce was aware of the way that the other boys reacted to Jeff’s attention, his effortless charm, his easy acceptance, and his unerring encouragement. It was infuriatingly natural, simple enough to replicate the appearance of but not to genuinely reproduce to the same effect. Bryce had spent years as a child trying to uncover the secret to making others like him, and had eventually let go of the endeavour, writing it off as impossible. Respect, fear, admiration, dependence, those things were formulaic and reliable, he could have written instruction manuals on the methods for achieving them, they were so simple and replicable. Genuine affection, the kind that Jeff drew without even seeming to try, that was a pipe dream, practically winning the lottery in terms of natural attributes, and to Bryce, who was accustomed to the certainty of an effortless victory, it felt supremely unfair. 

Jeff was the kind of boy that had probably never had an enemy or a harsh word said about him in his entire life, and it made Bryce want to punch him in his perfect fucking smile, but being associated with all of that goodwill served him far better than being at odds with it, so he grit his teeth and dimpled his cheek as Jeff added, “I was saying to the guys that they should stick around, see what it’s like. He could help keep their grades up so they can play football next season.”

Bryce snorted.

“These two?” 

Justin and Monty, who had been watching for his reaction, were predictable in their responses. Justin, always so easily chastised, clenched his jaw and flushed pink beneath the collar of his varsity jacket, looking away with a disheartened pout to his lower lip. Monty, conditioned to criticism, didn’t even flinch, his expression remaining totally neutral, as if being called an idiot was as natural to him as being referred to by his own name. Bryce might have been impressed by his ability to supress any emotional response, if the circumstances weren’t so pitiful. 

“Hey, I failed English for two years straight, and Clay got me a B,” Jeff countered good-naturedly, glancing across the table at the other boys, his smile flagging at Justin’s clear discomfort. “I was saying to Monty, Jensen even got me up to a C on Baxter’s last history test.” He glanced over his shoulder, toward quiet voices on the far side of the study area. “I went to study group for a while, but I do better one on one.”

Bryce followed the line of his gaze across the study area to a table in the opposite corner, where an assortment of students chatted in undertones, textbooks and study materials spread across the tabletop between them. He recognised a girl from his Geography class and the boy who sat in front of him in Calculus, but the others were no more familiar than random faces he might have passed in the hallways. He knew that she had set up a study group – Justin had offered as much in his fumbled effort to backtrack his admission about where she lived – but Bryce didn’t see Chloe amongst them. 

Over the last few weeks, he had gotten plenty of practice spotting her at a distance. 

A flash of golden hair in the hallway, or under the sun by the batting cages, where they held cheer practice. A laugh in the cafeteria, or outside the administration office. An aqua blue cheer uniform in his peripheral vision as he called a pay on the football field, the swish of her skirt at a pep rally, the bright warmth of her smile as she walked by, chatting with her friends, her gaze never straying in his direction. 

It was tantalizing and infuriating and he wanted to make her pay for not wanting him back, but mostly he just _wanted her_. 

Bryce knew that he was prone to fixation. He didn’t consider it a flaw so much as an urge to be aware of. Having goals and ambition was a good thing, his parents had always said. He should set himself targets to aspire towards, and not expect everything to be handed to him. He didn’t mind working for what he wanted – achievement was usually overrated but satisfying all the same. Even still, once he had fixated on something - a goal, a possession – self-awareness of his tendency to obsess usually became a moot point. 

He would have what he wanted, by whatever means necessary. 

When cheerleaders were allocated to players for Spring workouts he had, frustratingly but expectedly, considering they were respective team captains, been paired with Sheri. She was perfectly cheerful, full of smiles and friendly encouragement. It was a game of manners and social niceties that he would have rather not participated in, but he had obligations and an image to uphold. Chloe wasn’t popular enough or senior enough in the team to sway her allocation, and although Bryce was glad it didn’t turn out to be Monty, it was still irritating to watch her cheer for a grinning but bashful Luke, even if his mother’s Southern sense of manners meant that he would never dream of making a move. 

Conspicuously, Chloe stopped showing up at his parties, and it felt spiteful, because he threw more of them than he ever had, practically every Friday and every other Saturday night, even a few Sunday sessions in the afternoons, until his mother had tried to put her foot down one morning over breakfast, complaining about the mess he was leaving for the house staff to deal with. He waved off her concerns, and his father didn’t comment from behind his newspaper, but he eased off, anyway. Every party Chloe didn’t show up to was a kick in the teeth, and he was sick of drinking away his disappointment and hooking up with random girls as a distraction. 

Chloe’s Instagram profile was public, so Bryce followed it, at first just to see where she was when she blew off his parties, but soon enough he found himself flicking through reams of photos of her modelling prospective outfits in outlet changerooms, bathroom mirror selfies, snaps from the beach in summer and the woods in fall, pep rallies and cheer camp, smiling with her friends from the squad and a little girl a decade her junior, who had dark hair and an olive complexion, but the same angles to her jaw and cheekbones, and the same clear blue eyes. There was nothing in her profile that suggested she knew Monty at all, not a single photo that included him, not even at games or rallies that he had probably been part of. Bryce knew this for sure – he’d lay in his dark bedroom in the early hours of the morning and scrolled through until he hit the very first photo on her profile, a dreamily filtered picture of a little pink plastic tea set. 

It confirmed what he had suspected – that the reason Monty had kept his close proximity to Chloe to himself was because he harboured feelings for his pretty blonde neighbour, clearly unrequited if after a decade of sharing a fence he hadn’t managed to ingratiate himself to her whatsoever. His feeble attempt to keep his advantage hidden from Bryce seemed an obvious ploy to protect whatever wisp of opportunity Monty felt he had with the girl, because they both knew, as soon as Bryce cut in, he wouldn’t stand a chance. 

It would have struck Bryce as sort of pathetically amusing, if it wasn’t tangled up in selfish betrayal.

As Bryce turned his attention back to the boys, a tall, familiar figure jogged into the library, approaching the study group with an apologetic smile. 

“Hey, guys. Sorry I’m late,” Zach offered breathlessly, tossing his bag beneath the table and reaching to pull across a chair from nearby, his grin full of humility and grace, as always. He flopped into his seat and reached to pass around the papers in his hands. “But I brought copies of Chloe’s chapter notes, as promised.”

Bryce pursed his lips. He would prefer not to involve Dempsey in most things – he was a momma’s boy who tipped the scales between ally and tattle-tale far too much to the favour of the latter for his liking – and Bryce didn’t trust the other boy not to let his old-fashioned sense of good manners and chivalry get in the way of doing him a solid. 

But, desperate times…

“C’mon,” Bryce said, turning back to Justin and Monty. “We’re ditching. I’ve got a quarter ounce in the glovebox and I’m not spending the whole afternoon listening to Mr Laidley drone about fucking conditional probability.”

Justin hesitated, and Bryce was certain that the other boy didn’t give one single fuck about Jensen and his tutoring bullshit, which made it all the worse – because that meant he wanted to stay for Jeff. He smiled tightly, waiting. 

“Dude, I’m barely scraping a D- in History,” Monty muttered, and Bryce nudged his shoulder with his knuckles, harder than he might have otherwise, although Monty didn’t pout the way Justin would in his place.

“What, like your dad expects you to be a fucking historian or something? I’ll get you a copy of the quiz,” he insisted. “It’s ancient Rome, right? They roll out the same old thing every year.” He nodded his head for them to come along, his tone edged despite his smile and casual stance. “Let’s go.”

Justin threw Jeff an apologetic look – fuck him, he could sit in the back and get last toke – but both boys leaned over to collect their bags from beneath the table. Jeff told them goodbye with a good-natured grin – of course he fucking did – and as Bryce turned to follow them from the library, Jeff offered him a casual salute. The boy’s smile was relaxed, and nothing in his expression suggested sarcasm, but the small, private slight felt like a knife in his back. Bryce hid his clenched jaw behind a dimpled grin and turned away. 

None of them needed Clay Jensen to teach them about ancient Roman history, he thought as he headed to the exit. Brutus could have learned a thing or two about betrayal from these three. 

But that was OK. 

Caesar was the one who everyone remembered, and loved, in the end. 

~

Zach wasn’t afraid of Bryce.

Well, not _afraid_ , exactly. 

Wary, absolutely. Distrustful, sure. The other boy had power and no qualms about using it to get whatever he wanted, consequences for others – because there were never any consequences for him – be damned, and Zach wondered how a person became that way. 

He thought maybe it had to do with his family - textbook privilege, both parents from old money families, wealthy for so long that they couldn’t comprehend any other form of existence. They had never wanted for anything, so they didn’t understand need. They had never had to experience the ramifications of a mistake, so they didn’t understand caution. Their every whim had been met by the people around them for as long as they could remember, so they didn’t understand empathy, or care. Charity was something that people like the Walkers did for social credit, not out of any genuine desire to improve the lives and circumstances of people less fortunate than them. Every action was calculated and carefully balanced, the cost on one side of the scale always outweighed by the benefit on the opposite side, or it wasn’t worth doing at all. 

Sometimes, Zach worried that his own mother might become that way. When he looked at old photographs of when she and his father had met, back when they were studying business together in college, she seemed like a different person, that girl with long inky black hair, wearing floaty floral dresses and a genuine smile. Neither of his parents had come from anything special, his father the son of an accountant and a secretary who lived in a basic 2-by-1 in the suburbs, and his mother’s parents migrating in the late eighties for the simple joy of being paid a somewhat liveable wage, his grandfather working in construction while his grandmother earned extra cash dressmaking and tailoring clothing for their neighbours from home. 

Zach’s own father had worked his way up through the ranks of the banking system from a teller’s job that he picked up to pay for his college textbooks. Even as his salary had grown and so had the houses they lived in and the cars they drove, he was still the same man, with the same principles his parents had taught him. He didn’t flaunt his good fortune, he loathed the concept of keeping up with the joneses, and he only ever considered what the people around them had in order to determine if there was some way he might help them improve their circumstances. He took nothing for granted, having studied and watched stock prices and economies rise and fall, and he taught his children to be grateful for what they were given, ensuring that they completed chores for the reasonable allowances that they earned each week. On Friday evenings, he would sit Zach and May down at the kitchen table, their allowances a stack of coins, and help them each make decisions about how much they would put away toward their college funds, how much they would save toward the big ticket items they wanted – for Zach, often a new video game and May, a new outfit or accessory for her Barbies – and how much they wanted to put in their pocket to spend. Ten percent always went back into his hand, an early lesson about paying rent and financing loans. 

People assumed, because his parents bought him the Audi for his sixteenth birthday, that he was a spoiled rich kid – that he was like Bryce – but his father didn’t give him a credit card to fund the luxury of having his own car, like the Walkers did. Licensing, registration, insurance, fuel, maintenance – all of those costs were up to Zach to manage.

Until his father had died. 

For how long the cancer had taken to kill him – almost three years, from the diagnosis just after Zach turned thirteen to the summer he turned sixteen – it seemed to happen suddenly. One week, he was cheering for him from the stands at his football games, because he made sure never to miss one, and the next, he was in hospital, having collapsed at work after complaining of a headache. The scans the hospital staff had performed revealed advanced tumours in his lungs, liver, and brain. The doctors couldn’t say where exactly it had started – their best guess was an untreated melanoma – but at stage four, the source didn’t matter so much as attempts at treatment. Within months, his father had withered and wasted, from the strongest, brightest man Zach had ever met, to a shade of himself, brittle and frail, weak despite that he tried to smile through it, for Zach and for May.

When the first round of aggressive treatments had, after a bittersweet period of remission, proven unsuccessful, the doctors had offered him a second round, but by that time, he had been exhausted, the radiation ravaging his body almost more thoroughly than the cancer, and then had come the slowest part – the waiting. 

Bryce had been there, through that. Zach couldn’t deny it. While the other boys avoided the topic, uncertain what to say, looking quickly away when they realised that he noticed them watching him with hesitant concern, Bryce was the one who gave voice to their questions, asking if Zach was OK, how his family was doing, if there was anything they could do to help. He threw parties and get togethers as if nothing was wrong – as if Zach wasn’t spending most nights lying awake in bed, frightened that if he went to sleep, his father would be gone when he woke up. And honestly, it was a relief, to have something normal to cling to, a distraction from home. 

He tried his best to step into his father’s shoes, to be the man of the house, but it was terrifying and exhausting. No one asked him to do it – actually, his mother didn’t ask him to do much of anything in those days, she barely spoke to him or to May, rarely smiled, scarcely slept, all of her time and energy focussed into cooking and cleaning and working and any single other thing she could conceive of to fill her time that didn’t involve hospitals or treatment or accepting the fact that the man she loved so much was slipping through her fingers and she was totally powerless to do anything to help him – but it felt like what his father would have wanted. 

After he was gone – a strange sort of dreadful relief – Bryce was still there. He showed up with his mother when she came by with an offering of homemade muffins, oolong tea and flowers hand-picked from their garden, as well the invitation to borrow her staff, if his mother needed help, to look after the cooking and cleaning and gardening. It had been a hot, dry and sunny day – not the kind of day that should have followed that sort of devastation – and although company, being polite and the weather were three of the last things Zach wanted to think about, Bryce smiled at him when he found him in the den, staring at the menu screen of _Streetfighter_ , the game controller forgotten in his hands while Chun Li rocked back and forth, fists cocked, waiting for him to select an avatar. 

“Hey, buddy,” Bryce said. “It’s a nice day out. Let’s go for a swim.”

At first, it was awkward and quiet, treading water, hoping that Bryce might believe that his eyes were red and damp from the chlorine and not saying the last words he would ever get to say to his father. Eventually, May had come outside and sat with her feet dangling in the water and, after Bryce flicked water at her from halfway across the pool, turning his face away innocently when she gasped, they had descended all of a sudden into a full-on splash fight. Before he realised what he was doing, Zach had found himself laughing and cheering as he and May ganged up on Bryce, and he let them corner him at the deep end, grinning and calling for mercy through the barrage of water. 

Bryce was his friend. 

And sometimes, it seemed like that was all he was, and all he expected. That he wanted nothing more than Zach’s companionship and time, like Justin or Scott. That hanging out, playing sports, drinking at the foreshore or the pier, playing video games and talking about girls and all of that regular shit, was all he was after. 

But that wasn’t true. 

Zach tried to push the thought aside. And sometimes, that was easy.

Bryce didn’t try to manipulate him the way that he did Justin, every interaction an exchange where nothing was given freely, unless Justin was the one doing the giving. Zach wasn’t sure that any of the other boys noticed it, and maybe, if his father hadn’t spent so much time talking to him about being careful not to take his good fortune for granted, to make sure that he used it to look after the people he cared about, it wouldn’t have been obvious to him, either. 

Bryce didn’t expect to command him the way that he did Monty, either. It was frightening, what the other boy was willing to do for Bryce, sometimes without even having to be told. Zach had felt sick, that night outside of the Crestmont, when that Hillcrest player, out on a date with a pretty girl who lived around the corner from Zach, had shoulder-checked Bryce as they crossed paths on the sidewalk. Zach wasn’t even sure Monty had seen what had happened, lagging behind the group and chatting with Scott, but he had seen the look Bryce had given him. 

Maybe it wasn’t obvious to the other boys, but Zach thought he understood it. Bryce was collecting payment for all of those times that he let Monty crash in the pool house, or covered for him when he was late to practice, or pulled him back from the precipice of his own self-control. And too fucking bad if a common assault charge, which would mean a slap on the wrist for Bryce but a step closer to juvenile detention for Monty, was a higher price than he wanted to pay. It was that, or he could find someone else’s guest house to bleed all over next time his dad had a skinful. 

At a passing glance, Bryce gave, generously and kindly, from his overabundance of wealth and resource. From the outside, the relationships may have appeared parasitic, Justin and Monty attached to Bryce like a feeder fish following a shark, living off of his discarded scraps, contributing nothing to the betterment of their provider.

But that was only what was visible on the surface. The other boys gave, in ways that ran deeper and were worth more to Bryce than money or food, beer or weed, or a place to crash. Unquestioning loyalty, turning a blind eye when they shouldn’t, keeping their mouths shut when they should speak up, encouragement that should have been admonishment, credit where none was due, gratitude where payment had already been given. 

Zach did some of those things, too. A lot of them, actually. 

And that thing about Bryce that frightened him was that he couldn’t even explain why. 

Bryce didn’t ask him to. Not explicitly. He never asked Zach to keep a secret, or tell a lie, not even by omission. And he didn’t need Bryce in the way that the other boys did. He didn’t rely on the other boy for food or safety, for money or shelter. His mother was colder to him than she had ever been after his father had died, locking away all of the good feelings in exchange for not having to acknowledge the painful ones, but she provided, and she cared, and she loved him. He didn’t need Bryce for those things, the way Justin or Monty did. 

But Zach still protected him. 

Even though every time his mother referred to the other boy as “your friend, Bryce”, as if that were his full and proper title, it made him feel a little sick; a subtle reminder of what she expected from him. His father’s life insurance policy had covered the balance of the mortgage, and college tuition for both him and May – their mother didn’t talk about it, but Zach planned on honouring the deal they had always had with their father; that he would fund college upfront, but it was up to each of them to take responsibility for earning their position at the school they ended up attending, and paying him back once they used their education to get their careers off the ground, instead of expecting the privilege to be handed to them – but they were by no means wealthy. Not like the Walkers. Suddenly a single parent, his mother was terrified of losing their good standing in the county, and never wasted an opportunity to form and maintain connections, or held back from pushing her children to do the same. They might rely on those people one day, she reminded them. Everything could be gone in an instant.

That was true. That had already happened. 

His dad had been everything, to all of them, and now he was gone. 

Zach would be sad if they fell on bad enough times that they would have to sell the house – it was where he had grown up, where all of his memories of his father were – but he knew that if it happened, they would be OK. 

The security of the other boy’s wealth and privilege wasn’t the reason he stuck by Bryce.

It was something more subtle than that, something he couldn’t put words to. It was wrapped up in the way that Bryce called him ‘brother’. The way that he told the others to lay off when he could see that their ‘mommas’ boy’ taunts were getting to him, because they wouldn’t stop for anyone else but him. The way that he always acknowledged a great shot or a well-executed play. It didn’t feel like a debt, exactly, because it was difficult to quantify exactly what either of them was gaining. It was closer to an obligation, but that wasn’t quite right either – because Zach didn’t feel that way about the other guys. They supported each other and hassled each other and fell out and made up, they were _friends_.

And it wasn’t that Bryce _wasn’t_. 

Or maybe it was that. 

Either way, when Bryce asked him for a favour – asked him for Chloe Rice’s phone number – Zach found himself lying.

“Oh, I don’t have it,” he said with a shrug, and that was easy enough, he spat it out so quickly that there couldn’t possibly be any ulterior motive to be gleaned from it, but Bryce eyed him as they walked toward the locker rooms, and he felt compelled to explain further. “We have a message board. The school sets them up for study groups. So, we just IM through there.”

“You message Chloe?” Bryce asked, curiosity masking something else that added tension to his tone. “Through this school message board?”

“Uh, no. Well, sometimes,” Zach couldn’t even explain why he was anxious enough to stumble over the explanation. He wasn’t doing anything wrong. Sure, Bryce had been asking questions about Chloe for the last few weeks since Dollar Valentines, and Zach hadn’t lied to him – not exactly. He hadn’t _volunteered_ that he had joined Chloe’s study group for help with his History grade, but it was just because Bryce hadn’t asked him directly. He avoided Bryce’s gaze, glancing across the hallway at a group of juniors laughing and shoving each other into lockers. “We all, like, message each other, y’know? About homework and quizzes and stuff like that.”

Bryce waited, and even though Zach knew that it was entirely the point of the silence, he felt compelled to fill it, anyway. 

“So, we don’t have each other’s numbers. And we don’t really talk about stuff that’s not school work…” 

Zach trailed off, forcing himself to endure the silence. It wouldn’t kill him. He lived with two females – he had endured more sophisticated conversational manipulation than this.

Bryce cocked an eyebrow at him.

“You’re not holding out on me,” he queried, his smile dimpled and friendly. “Are you, Zachy?”

After his father had died, Zach insisted that he was OK when he wasn’t. He kept his feelings and his summer with Hannah Baker a secret from everybody. When Chloe smiled at him in their study group, her blue eyes full of warmth and encouragement, he thought about spiders and snakes and things that scared him to keep the colour from rising in his cheeks, although he couldn’t do much about the way that his heartbeat stuttered in his chest. 

He could hide what he had to, but he wasn’t a natural liar. And he wasn’t good at it.

“Nah, man,” he said, with a chuckle, like the query wasn’t the accusation it clearly was. “You know I’ve got you.” It sounded like a plea, even to his own ears, and he couldn’t help burying himself deeper, putting more distance between him and the other boy, by adding, “I just don’t have what you need on this one, brother.”

Bryce, thankfully, frighteningly, just nodded. 

“Yeah. Alright.”

And for weeks, it was alright. If the other boy was angry with him, Zach couldn’t tell. He told the same jokes and clapped him on the back the same way when he made a great play, invited him for drinks at the pool house and to the Crestmont to catch a movie. It was exceedingly normal, so much so that for the first week or so, it set Zach on edge, as he waited for the inevitable moment when Bryce would reveal his game ending move. But it didn’t come. And by the end of the fourth week, he felt silly and guilty for having expected Bryce to try to manipulate him. 

Despite all the other things he was, Bryce was his friend. 

The following Wednesday, study group ran late as they crammed for a quiz scheduled for Friday morning, and by the time Zach made it to the parking lot, his head swimming with dates and names, anxious that his memory was going to fail him, no matter how many times he ran through his flashcards, most of the other vehicles that had been parked there through the day were gone. The Audi was where he had left it, parked underneath the light-post outside of the administration building. May was sitting in the passenger seat waiting for him, still dressed in her track uniform from after school cross-country practice, her phone in one hand and her bag in the back seat. She was twisted at the waist to rest her elbow on the edge of the door, her chin propped in her hand as she giggled.

In the empty parking lot, Bryce’s Range Rover was pulled up alongside the Audi. 

“Hey, brother,” Bryce called from the open driver’s side window and a grin and a little salute. “Just keeping May company here while she waited on you.”

Zach tried not to let the apprehension that crept down his spine show in his gait as he approached the two vehicles.

“Oh, yeah?” he said, aiming for conversational and landing somewhere around mechanical. He tossed his bag into the backseat with more force than he intended, shoulders tense as he palmed the keys. “Well, thanks for keeping an eye out for her. We’ve gotta get home. Mom’ll have a meltdown if we’re late for dinner.”

Bryce smiled, calm and friendly. 

“I was just saying, you should bring May with you, next time I throw a party,” Bryce offered, tipping his head to wink at May cheekily. “She owes me a splash-fight rematch. Right, May?”

May laughed, rolling her eyes.

“Only if you’re man enough to get your butt kicked by a little girl in front of all your buddies.”

Bryce grinned, and Zach felt like he might accidentally rip the Audi’s door off the hinges, he yanked it open so hard. It bounced back on him as he climbed into the driver’s seat, and he resisted the urge to kick it out of the way, situating himself as quickly as he could and starting the engine as an excuse to ignore the friendly invitation. 

“Catch you tomorrow, dude,” he called, refusing the other boy the satisfaction of eye contact as he threw the car into reverse and stomped on the gas. May narrowed her eyes at him with a mixture of suspicion and embarrassment at his behaviour. Bryce just smiled, lifting his hand in a wave as Zach gunned the engine and headed for the exit.

After pushing his dinner around on his plate for half an hour without eating anything, which his mother mercifully didn’t comment on, entirely wrapped up in a story about another mother on the PTA and her ridiculous fundraising ideas, Zach went to his room.

Chewing the inside of his cheek, he copied the phone number from Chloe’s profile on the study group WhatsApp chat, which had replaced the school-provided and monitored messaging service almost as soon as the group had formed, and pasted it into a text message. Hesitating, he thought about the way that Chloe tucked her hair behind her ear when she smiled, and the way that May’s cheeks had been glowing pink when she turned in the passenger seat of the Audi to look at him, and the nausea that had rushed into his throat at the realisation that Bryce would use that memory - _that_ memory – and pair it with Zach’s protectiveness of May and everything that Zach knew about Bryce and the way that he treated girls, just to get what he wanted.

Zach realised he wasn’t any different to Justin or Monty. Not at all.

Before he could change his mind, he hit send. 

~

“Saturday night poker’s off, ladies,” Bryce announced to the table in the cafeteria at lunch on a Friday a few weeks later. “I’ve got a date.”

Ramon and Scott booed and groaned, while Justin kept his eyes down on his tray, focussed on peeling back the plastic packaging of a cheese and tomato sandwich, the anxious tension in his shoulders barely visible beneath his varsity jacket. Bryce resisted the urge to roll his eyes – Justin had been sleeping on the couch in the pool house for the last three nights. Surely whatever the hell his beef with Meth Seth had been would have simmered down in that time. And anyway, the least Justin could do was cut him some slack and not cockblock him in return for his hospitality. He clapped the other boy on the shoulder, grinning as he brandished his phone. Justin glanced up at the photo on the screen, and although his cheek dimpled with a smile, his tone was uncertain. 

“Dude-”

Jesus fucking Christ, considering how many girls at Liberty salivated after him, Justin could be a prude. Bryce just cocked an eyebrow. 

“Try not make yourselves sick with jealousy when you’re jacking off to this later, alright?”

With a leer, he turned the phone for the other boys to appreciate the mirror selfie Chloe had sent him, standing in a dressing room in a boutique at the mall, trying on a figure-hugging, burgundy dress. It was unzipped at the back, and over her shoulder, a mirror mounted on the changeroom door reflected a teasing glimpse of the matching white lace bra and panties she wore underneath. Ramon and Scott chuckled, impressed, leaning forward for a better view. Zach went instantly pink and averted his eyes like he’d taken some sort of vow of chastity, and Luke smiled the same way he always did – bright and brainless, prompted more by the reactions of the boys around him than anything organic. Grinning, Bryce pivoted the phone to Monty, sitting directly opposite him. 

He wasn’t sure exactly what he had expected when he claimed his moment of victory. Probably nothing, a non-reaction that told him exactly how much the other boy was crushing down behind that expressionless mask that he didn’t want Bryce to see. He certainly hadn’t expected Monty to smile, his gaze lingering on the photo for a moment before he lifted his chin in a congratulatory nod. 

“Nice.”

Monty was good at hiding his reactions, but only by smothering them down to nothing, so that it was always easy to tell when he was hiding something, but not what that something was. Bryce had never seen him attempt to obscure what he was feeling with the projection of something ingenuine, and as the other boy returned his attention to his sandwich, he couldn’t quite decide if he was disappointed with the reaction. Certainly, after so many weeks, it felt underwhelming, but it also offered him some comfort. Perhaps he had misjudged his friend, after all. His ability to read the people around him rarely faltered, and as he tucked his phone back into the pocket of his varsity jacket, Bryce was glad that he had refrained from pre-emptively punishing the other boy. He still didn’t trust Monty – and he still suspected that the other boy had deliberately withheld information from him – but there was something conciliatory about the way he ceded victory, something like contrition, which the other boy rarely ever gave, and Bryce wasn’t heartless. He wouldn’t slam the door on a cage Monty had crawled back into willingly. 

“You haven’t even bought her a drink, yet,” Ramon lamented from the other end of the table. “How the hell’d you score that?”

Bryce shrugged, full of showy humility, and cocked his head.

“She wanted to make sure I liked her outfit before she bought it. That’s how I like them. Desperate for approval.” He paused to grin, winking at the other boys. “Usually means they’ll do anything you want.”

Beside him, Justin sat stiffly, but said nothing, and the other boys continued to press him for details, while Monty quietly finished his lunch.

~

Friday afternoon football practice was his favourite, not only because they didn’t require setting an early alarm to drag himself out of bed in time to make them, but also the way they offered a release to the week, a way to work off any lingering frustration or aggression over a disappointing test score or a frustrating group project. It was always satisfying to end the week on the praise and admiration of his team mates, who cast hopeful glances his way as they headed to the locker rooms to shower afterwards, eager for an invitation to whatever party or activity he had planned for the evening. 

For the last half hour, they split into two teams to run practice plays, Coach Morris watching from the sidelines while Kerba called directions and encouragement.

Bryce felt the rush of cool afternoon air around him and heard the shouts of the other boys calling to each other as he stepped back to make a smooth catch, cradling the ball, warm and rough, against his chest as he turned to run. 

The last thing he saw was a flash of blue vaulting over Luke’s bent form in the scrimmage line, and a dim impression of the number **32** , and then he was lying on the pitch, deaf and blind, the taste of blood in his mouth and his winded lungs screaming for air that wouldn’t come. He choked and heaved, his stomach forcing acid up into his throat, his vision swimming as sound began to fade back in, distorted, as if heard from underwater.

_C’mon, Monty. We talked about high tackles. Save them for the opposition, and only when no one’s watching. Right?_

Kerba’s concerned frown came into focus above him, and Bryce squinted against the suddenly too-bright sunlight. His chest burned as his lungs finally managed to expand, and almost immediately, his head began to throb.

“Shit, man, you alright?”

Justin’s concerned expression appeared over Kerba’s shoulder, as the assistant coach bent down to tug him into a sitting position. Bryce groaned, every muscle and bone above the waist protesting. 

His tongue found the laceration at the inside of his lip, where his teeth had clamped down at the moment of impact, and his fingers felt numb as he scratched around for the chin strap of his helmet, his head pounding so hard and loud that it felt like it would burst. Kerba reached to help him, but Bryce jerked away, tearing the strap free. He yanked off the helmet, throwing it at the turf so hard that Justin and Luke, who had jogged up alongside him, flinched back as it bounced in their direction. Bryce turned a furious look toward Monty, shouting over the insistent ringing in his ears. 

“What the _fuck_?”

Monty, standing a few feet away with his own helmet hanging casually from one hand, just shrugged.

“Gotta watch your left, dude.”

Bryce thought he might be sick with pain and rage. 

“Hmm. Your pupils look OK,” Kerba frowned as he crouched to get a closer look. “You’re lucky, looks like you got away without a concussion.” He clicked his tongue as he straightened. “Definitely gonna have a couple of shiners and a fat ol’ lip, though.”

Bryce closed his eyes, hunching over his raised knees, and tried to concentrate on breathing, as Justin leaned down to place a comforting hand on his shoulder, and Luke’s concerned drawl perforated the rhythmic pounding that rattled his skull. 

“Oh, man,” the other boy said, his tone full of genuine second-hand disappointment. “Two black eyes. And you got that date tomorrow night, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to comfortwriter28 for the beta review and chats, as always!
> 
> I struggled with this chapter quite a bit - I always struggle with the Bryce chapters! - so I'm sorry for the delay in updating.
> 
> I'm nearly finished the next chapter, so hopefully there won't be so much of a break before the next one! The next chapter will be Monty led and will follow more or less directly on from the Clubhouse, and the canon events that pick up from the day Justin shows up in the cafeteria at Liberty.
> 
> I hope you're all keeping safe and well, and that you're all excited for season 4 to be released on 5 June :)
> 
> If you're looking for something good to watch on Netflix in the meantime, I recommend Outerbanks. And check out the obx fics on ao3 afterwards, there are some really great ones being posted every day!
> 
> Thank you as always for reading and commenting <3


	14. Box of Polaroids

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Following directly on from the Clubhouse, mostly set during 2x07 "the Third Polaroid", Monty continues to try to derail the trial, and makes a risky attempt to understand how Justin came across the polaroid of Bryce and Chloe at the clubhouse.

The grass underfoot was crisp with frost as Monty crossed from where he had parked the Jeep on the opposite side of the football field. The sun was just barely cresting over the roof of the main building, lighting up the Walker Field scoreboard like a beacon in the distance. There was no one around other than a couple of custodians and a few teachers getting an early start, but he walked quickly anyway, one hand tucked into the pocket at the front of his black hooded sweater, the other cradling his side. He didn’t think anything was broken, but he had been distracted and caught unsuspecting when he had arrived home late for dinner the night before, snatched by the hood of his sweater the moment he stepped into the kitchen and pinned against the refrigerator door, each broken segment of the question punctuated with a fist slammed into his flank. 

“The fuck. Have I told you. About being. Fucking. Late?”

What he had told him was if he was going to be late, he’d better not come back at all. 

Maybe if he hadn’t been exhausted and distracted, he would have remembered.

Maybe if he listened, and wasn’t such a fucking idiot, he would have given it a single moment of thought.

Probably, it wouldn’t have made any difference.

Big Monty had been pissed since the morning, demanding to know what in the hell had taken so long the second he returned to the partially demolished hospital bathroom block with the sledgehammer. 

“See some pretty boy and forget what the fuck you went out there for, did you?”

Monty handed him the sledgehammer and didn’t say anything, turning to retrieve the crowbar he had been using to prise the old mirrors from the tiled walls and lever the disconnected sinks from their housing in the cabinetry. 

There was no right answer.

By the time he made it to football practice, he was already twenty minutes late, had already been awake four hours and working for three, and Kerba had just shaken his head at him as Monty jogged out from the change rooms, still tugging his gear into place and brushing grout dust from his hair, his expression cautiously hopeful. 

“You know the drill, kid. A lap for every minute you’re late. Coach Morris’s rules.”

While the rest of the team worked through drills and practice plays, Monty ran punishment laps of the field, Kerba counting each one as he passed where he stood on the boundary line. _That’s five. You gonna pick up the pace, or you not planning on participating in practice today?_ Coach Morris ignored him entirely, and that was no different to usual. He might as well have been Bryce’s actual shadow, for all the acknowledgement the man ever offered, looking through him as if he wasn’t there at all, and probably, he would prefer if he wasn’t. Monty was necessary to Kerba’s defensive strategy – someone had to be willing to make the dirty and dangerous plays when they could get away with them, when the game was riding on them – but that didn’t mean Coach Morris wouldn’t have cut him without hesitation if he had the opportunity. 

That was OK. He had plenty of practice persevering in places he wasn’t wanted. 

Justin showing up in the middle of the cafeteria during lunch was just about the last thing he had expected from the other boy, and his parting words, _Bryce’s little faggot errand boy_ , had looped in the back of his mind as he stood, the reaction mechanical and instinctual, his legs levering him from the bench beside Scott before he had even fully registered that he was only doing so because Bryce had gotten to his feet. He didn’t know what he would do if it kicked off between them, or if Justin revealed their interaction in the hospital parking lot that morning to Bryce. 

He hadn’t told the other boy, partly because of the way that Bryce had nudged Scott’s arm with his elbow at football practice, chuckling as Monty finished his final lap in time to join the group only for the team to be dismissed, but mostly because he didn’t know how. Bryce had been dismissive of the rumour of Justin’s return, shrugging it off as unimportant, but Bryce wasn’t always as deceptive as he liked to think he was. His insistently uncaring attitude gave away exactly how much he did care, and Monty didn’t know how Bryce would react to confirmation that Justin was back in town, or the admission that, rather than slinking back to his place at Bryce’s side, tail between his legs like a beaten dog, he had instead approached Monty, and attempted to coerce him away from that position. 

Somehow, realising that Justin would approach Monty before Bryce seemed even more likely to anger the other boy than the fact that his former best friend was apparently hiding out with Clay _fucking_ Jensen. He couldn’t think of a way to frame that information that wouldn’t result in it being his fault. Why else would Justin have approached _him_ , have thought there might be an opportunity to convince him to turncoat, if not for his obvious disloyalty to Bryce? It wouldn’t matter that he had turned the other boy down, even though part of him hadn’t wanted to. 

His heart thundered anxiously inside his ribcage as Justin turned and saw Bryce - _you…_ \- and Monty braced himself for an altercation. His fists tightened at his sides and his throat went dry, because it looked like the other boy was barely keeping his feet, and he didn’t want to have to hurt him when he was clearly so weak, even though part of him felt driven to grab him by the head and smash his face into the tiled floor until every tooth in his skull was broken and he couldn’t say that shit - _I understand why you’re scared about Bryce finding out. The way he’d twist that shit around on you if he knew_ \- anymore. But he didn’t _want_ to do it, not with Chloe sitting right there. 

And all he could think about was that photo, on that phone, in that bag. 

He had to get it. 

Bryce was unsurprisingly sullen in the wake of Justin’s appearance, snapping at Chloe’s anxious questioning - _you don’t know how I feel_ \- so caught up in his own sense of betrayal that he didn’t even look up at Monty’s fumbling rush to insist that they hadn’t known Justin was back in town, an obvious lie in response to a question that hadn’t even been aimed at him. It was unnecessary and stupid, not only because Bryce clearly didn’t give a shit about Chloe’s concern, but because it risked toppling years of carefully executed charades. Since freshman year, in public, he and Chloe had had to become different people – strangers, no more familiar to one another than any other student in the hallways. And since she had begun dating Bryce, that act had been forced to evolve into something more complex, like meeting again for the first time, pressing down all of that familiarity and instinctive comfort in order to fabricate something new, a mask of circumstantial acquaintances, to hide a decade of friendship behind, all under the watchful eye of Bryce. 

Bryce’s resentful melancholy was as good a distraction as any to take advantage of, and Monty had slipped away while the others dumped their trash and deposited their trays by the cafeteria doors, heading out to the parking lot and climbing into the Jeep. Part of him hesitated at the thought that Clay and Tony would take Justin back to the Jensen house, their cover now well and truly blown, but he had no other ideas, and he couldn’t bear not to try any possible opportunity to get that photo back. 

The house had been so quiet and still that Monty contemplated anxiously that the boys must have taken Justin somewhere else, that he must have been wrong to come here after all. 

Massive fucking surprise; he was full of wrong ideas lately. 

Setting that smarmy campaign sign alight in Marcus’s front yard seemed to have unsettled the other boy, and although Chloe had raised an eyebrow at him for it - _really? A little too close to burning crosses in his front yard, don’t you think?_ \- the result had been mixed. Marcus had, predictably, lied his goddamn ass off on the stand, and nothing that he had said implicated the school in any way, other than perhaps a criticism of the idiotic Dollar Valentine fundraiser. His decision to talk, unnecessarily, about Bryce was a whole other thing, but Monty wasn’t too concerned about that. Marcus used his talent for spinning unfavourable situations, learned from his slippery politician father, to explain to Bryce how he had done him a favour, and Monty had almost felt sorry for the other boy. Clearly, he thought that meant something to Bryce, that he’d deposited some sort of credit that he could draw down later, but Monty knew better. 

Bryce never owed anyone anything. 

Still, if the goal of what they were doing was persuading people not to testify, it had been another mark in the fail column. 

Then there had been Zach. Monty hadn’t told Chloe about that one. She wasn’t squeamish – they used to catch tadpoles and lizards out in the woods, sometimes field mice, which Chloe would hold in the palm of her hand, petting them gently with a fingertip until they stopped shivering – but she was friendly with Zach, more than she let Bryce see, and he didn’t want to burden her with having to be involved. And, fuck it, maybe he was a little jealous, too. That Zach was getting to meet Chloe for the first time, to grow a friendship while she and Monty pretended, playing their respective parts in the shell of one, and even though it was overshadowed by her relationship with Bryce, her connection with Zach was fresh and whole and genuine, not broken and crippled and stuffed into a dark corner where Bryce couldn’t see, like what was left between them. 

Zach couldn’t know how he had unintentionally betrayed him in an effort to simply be nice to Chloe, but when Monty stumbled upon the dead rat, killed with a nail-gun by one of the other contractors and lying beside the dumpster where he tossed the old porcelain sinks from the hospital bathroom after dragging them out to the parking lot, it seemed fitting. 

Even so, that had been wrong and ineffectual, too. While Monty sat in the Jeep, parked across the road from the Jensen house, watching for any signs of movement inside, Zach was on the stand. 

He was failing. Chloe’s idea was simple, and he was fucking it up. 

He had to get that photo.

After ten minutes of watching the quiet house, he climbed from the Jeep, reaching into the back to tug free the black hooded sweater tossed there after a rainy morning at work, and shucked off his plaid shirt, pulling the sweater on in its place. As he trotted across the street, the two storey houses and tidy bungalows on either side serenely quiet, Monty pulled up the hood. He wondered, as he moved quickly around the side of the house, ducking between neatly trimmed hedges and caringly maintained garden beds, whether anyone in this neighbourhood knew what it was like to go to sleep to the sound of nearby sirens and shouting from the neighbour’s property, slammed doors and squealing tyres and wailing children daily background noise only a few miles away, at the bottom of the hill. 

He hadn’t done it before, broken into somebody’s home, but smashing the pane of glass in the French door at the side of the house was easy, the glass thin and decorative, and the neighbourhood was nice, but not monitored-alarm-nice, so he reached inside without hesitation, disengaging the lock and letting himself inside. It was strange, being inside someone else’s house without their knowledge, and especially _this_ house. It wasn’t as grand or intimidating as the Walker’s, and it wasn’t as clinically curated as the Dempsey’s, but it was spacious and warm and inviting and lived-in, and he knew he _should_ feel like he was intruding – he was an intruder, after all – but there was something else about it that felt wrong, that would have felt wrong, even if he had been invited inside. 

He didn’t belong there. Homes like that weren’t meant for him. 

He wondered if Justin felt the same way. 

Unsettled, Monty had hurried up the stairs, less concerned with silence than haste. Most of the doors were open – a master bedroom, a bathroom – except the one at the end of the hall. Clay Jensen’s room was basically what he had expected – full of geeky memorabilia, comic books stacked neatly into a bookcase, indie band posters and drawings pinned to the walls, more personalised than he had anticipated, but then, Clay could be unabashedly passionate about the things he enjoyed, unreserved about his enjoyment in a way that Monty found strange and unsettling. The window was propped open, filling the room with a cool, fresh breeze. The only untidy thing in the otherwise unoccupied space was Justin’s beat up Liberty Tigers duffel bag, tossed on the bed. 

The gun, tucked in the bottom underneath tangles of dirty clothes, had been a surprise. Monty wouldn’t have pegged Justin for the type of person comfortable handling a firearm. Even he had hesitated to take it from the bag. His parents had never owned guns, and although he saw them around the neighbourhood from time to time, and had crossed paths with hunters in the woods while camping or hiking, he hadn’t ever had reason to handle one himself. It was unsettling, somehow, to think that the other boy had been carrying the weapon when they exchanged unkind words in the hospital parking lot only hours before, and again, when he had come face to face with Bryce in the cafeteria. 

The sound of footsteps on the stairs shoved aside his hesitation, and Monty yanked open the interior zippers, his quickened pulse thundering in his ears. The phone had been tucked into one of the interior side pockets, and he yanked it free, snatching the gun with the other hand as he turned toward the window. 

When he got back to Liberty, there had been questions from Bryce – _where had he been? Did he go to the clubhouse? Why was he ditching Geography when he was barely passing and needed all the attendance he could get?_ And he had stumbled through noncommittal answers, his mind on the gun and the phone, wrapped inside the sweater and tucked underneath the passenger seat of the Jeep in the parking lot outside, and the fact that, even though he had recovered the phone, and the copy of the polaroid of Chloe that it held, the original still existed somewhere. He hadn’t had the opportunity to thoroughly search Jensen’s room for it, but it seemed unlikely the other boy would have it – why in the fuck would he? Where would he have gotten it from? – more likely, someone who had access to its source had shown it to Justin. 

He had to get to the clubhouse.

“Hey,” Bryce had clicked his fingers inches from his face, and Monty blinked, realising the other boy was waving a pair of girl’s panties at him. He frowned, puzzled, as Bryce grinned, asking, “You got a marker pen?”

Monty would have preferred to ditch baseball practice and slip away to the clubhouse while he knew the other guys on the team were otherwise occupied, but Bryce was already suspicious of where he had been, so he dug in his backpack for the red paint marker that Chloe had used to write on the blow up doll he had hung from the rafters on Jessica Davis’s porch, and handed it to Bryce, smirking along with Scott and Ramon as they watched Bryce write **Hannah** across the nude fabric. Monty had no idea what it meant, but he was willing to play along as long as Bryce was distracted, smiling when the other boy glanced over his shoulder at him as he hung the panties in Zach’s locker. 

It wasn’t until the early evening, after wrestling practice, when he stood at the end of the navy pier, the sweater tugged on over his plaid shirt and tee doing little against the biting wind coming in off of the water as he dismantled the old phone and tossed each individual piece into the waves, that Monty understood why Zach had reacted with uncharacteristic rage at the prank. Plucking his own phone from the pocket of his jeans, he had flicked on the torch function and peered at the surface of the water, searching for any suggestion that any of the pieces hadn’t sunk beneath the surface. The inky black water offered nothing but the relentless churn of the tide, and he had switched the torch off before someone spotted him, looking down at the long scroll of messages in the group chat that he had missed through the day, boys from the football and baseball and basketball teams expressing surprise and amusement that Zach’s testimony had revealed a summer tryst between him and Hannah Baker.

Not a little virgin momma’s boy after all. 

Monty had headed home from there. That had been stupid, and a waste of time. Never loosening his grip on the hood of his sweater, his father hadn’t waited for an explanation for why he had shown up late for dinner, just turned him around, dragged him back to the front door, and shoved him back outside. Cradling his ribs and trying to catch his breath, Monty hadn’t quite managed to suppress a flinch at the door slamming behind him. 

Well, he supposed, as he returned to the Jeep, pulling the keys from the pocket of his sweater, he’d walked right into that one. Literally. No one to blame but himself.

Nothing new there. 

By the time he made it back to Liberty, it was full dark, and there were lights on in the clubhouse.

Shit.

If it had been Scott, he might have gone ahead anyway, but when he crept closer to the door, there was more than one voice, at least one or two of them female, and he backed away. Monty had walked back to the Jeep, reclined the drivers’ seat, and waited, eyelids sinking lower as the minutes ticked by. The guys often joked that he could sleep through anything, giggling at the way he would tip his head against the window of the team bus and be out like a light after an away game, part of him still attuned to the noise and the movement around him, but the parts that needed to recharge powered down like a machine. Even though he knew he was safe there – the worst he might suffer was an embarrassing photograph or one of his teammates trying to draw a dick on his face – it was the closest he ever got to sleep any more. 

And he was _so tired_.

Aside from the fact that it had been more than fifteen hours since his alarm had gone off that morning, _everything else_ had left him feeling raw and battle-weary. Justin’s unguardedness, his emotionally charged engagement, had always been draining, requiring Monty to ramp up his focus on maintaining his own barriers as the other boy came at them like a battering ram, but that morning had been a whole new level. Unexpected in more ways than one, the other boy’s dogged claims that he could be more than this, more than Bryce would ever allow, more than anyone in his life had ever expected or wanted for him, more than he had ever dared to hope himself, had rattled him, and it took every shred of his resolve to resist Justin’s insistence, to remind himself that Justin didn’t believe those things – no one did – he just wanted something from him, and was willing to say what he thought was necessary to get it. 

Maybe at one time, Monty could have believed him. And even now, as his breathing slowed to an even, shallow pattern and his eyelids slid closed, there was a tiny part of him that _wanted_ to. But hope was dangerous. Hope fucking hurt. Realistic goals and careful planning and acceptance of limitations might have seemed like prison bars from the outside, but they protected equally as effectively as they confined. 

His phone vibrating in the pocket of his sweater jolted him back to full awareness. 

There was frost on the windows of the Jeep and the time display on his phone read:

**05  
07**

Shit.

Monty flicked open the push notification of Chloe’s text.

_the local news sites are reporting Clay Jensen is testifying today_

**Shit.**

Mark that up seven-nil, another failure.

Rubbing the grit of exhaustion from his eyes with the knuckles of one hand, he texted back with the other.

_don’t worry. i’ll deal with it_

It felt like an unnecessary risk, to park against the curb opposite the house where he had broken in only hours before, so Monty pulled up around the corner, and watched as a young boy rode his bike slowly along the sidewalk, reaching into the milk crate cable-tied to the handle bars every few seconds to collect a local newspaper and toss it into the front yard of each house. He waited there ten minutes, fifteen, under the guise of making sure that the newspaper delivery boy was far enough away that he wouldn’t stumble upon him, but mostly, he thought about the gun, still tucked underneath the passenger seat. 

Clay Jensen was a nerd and a nobody, but he was clever and well-spoken and the kind of kid who went unseen, and by that virtue, _saw_ things. He was easy to ignore, which meant that things happened around him, things he noticed, that would be better if he didn’t speak about. There was what he knew about Bryce – and that was hard to tell, but also a whole other thing – because what he knew about the school was worse. Jensen was the kind of kid who got shoulder-checked in the hallways and picked last for teams in PE and laughed at when he spoke too passionately about historical figures and scientific theories. If there was anyone more perfect to talk about the culture at Liberty than Tyler Down, it was Clay Jensen. He was more articulate, less prickly, more relatable and less defensive. 

If the prosecution wanted a star witness who knew Liberty and all of its ugliness, and could speak to it factually and elegantly, it was Clay.

Monty felt like laughing, because only weeks ago, he would have considered the idea ridiculous.

His whole life, cupped in the hands of Clay fucking Jensen. 

And he fucking deserved it, because he was a coward.

Too scared to break into the house for a second time in as many days. Too reluctant to see that expression of terror on Clay’s face, white washed by the headlights of the Rover, replicated at close range. Too shaken by handling the gun once already to want to touch it again, the weight of it frighteningly solid in his hand, and yet it was so easy to lift, to point at something else, to imagine aiming at his father, to picture turning toward himself. 

Leaning over, Monty reached into his backpack for the paint marker, and when he climbed from the car, he left the gun beneath the passenger seat. 

He had told Chloe he would deal with it, but he was exhausted and afraid and out of ideas and an idiot anyway. He didn’t bother pulling up the hood of his sweater or ducking into the shadows beneath the trees that lined the sidewalk, trotting straight up the steps of the Jensen’s front path and crouching where their newspaper had landed by the porch stairs as he tugged the cap off of the paint marker with his teeth. 

He didn’t expect Clay to hesitate at the scrawled message for more than a moment – being run off the road hadn’t deterred him; apparently, he had more resolve than that – so instead of heading to the hospital, afterwards, Monty went back to the clubhouse. His dad would probably be pissed at him for blowing off work. Fuck it, he was already more than an hour late anyway, and he’d probably be pissed at him for showing up without explicit instruction, either way. 

There was no winning, just the wrong decision, every time. 

If he couldn’t stop Clay from testifying, and he couldn’t do what his father wanted, at least he could try to get that photo back, for Chloe. 

Sneakers damp from the frosty grass, Monty eased open the gate at the edge of the field and moved cautiously along the dirt path to the clubhouse. The lock was hanging in place, the number dials scrambled as they had all been instructed to do after one senior a couple of years ago had stumbled out drunk one night and left the lock sitting on its combination, which the sophomore girl he had been partying with used to her advantage when she returned for the sweater she had left behind, tugged on the lock ‘just in case’, and had it pop open in her hand. She had taken her sweater, their stash of weed, the pipe, a six pack of beer, and the lock, for good measure. Coach Rick had almost shut the whole thing down. Monty had been a freshman on the junior varsity team, at the time, and the idea of losing his secret shelter had been terrifying. It would be another couple of years before he bought the Jeep, or found the hobo hotel, and all he had was his dirt bike and Chloe and the fickle grace of Bryce. 

The lock was icy cold beneath his fingers, and he adjusted the dials quickly, flicking to the familiar combination and yanking the lock free the moment it popped open. He tucked the lock into the pocket of his sweater and slipped inside. Typically, the clubhouse was no warmer inside than the air outside, the chill creeping in through the gaps around the door and windows, through the spaces between the weatherboards. It didn’t bother the guys, most of the time. They could drink away the cold, and anyway, it was a good excuse to offer a jacket or an arm around the shoulders of the girl sitting next to them. Definitely, it beat the icy air that seeped in through the concrete underneath the tent at the hobo hotel. 

Crossing the small space to the cabinet on the opposite side, he reached for the black box on a low shelf, half hidden by crates of equipment and miscellaneous junk, its gold edging obscured by shadow. It felt heavy as he slid it from the shelf, carried it over to the dinged up old coffee table and sat on the edge of the couch. Monty knew he didn’t have a lot of time – or at least, he couldn’t bet on it. It wasn’t like they scheduled time in the clubhouse; any one of the guys from the team could arrive at any moment. And the alternative – taking the box somewhere else, so that he had the time and security to search it properly – wasn’t even worth considering. If it was discovered missing, the whole team would go into lockdown, Coach Rick would destroy and disavow the whole place, and he would be left, holding the smoking gun.

Still, he hesitated. 

He thought about that afternoon ten years ago, and the way that Chloe’s eyes had been bright with tears at the sting of her grazed shins, and how she smiled anyway, her cheek dimpling as the greasy teenage boy who had laughed at her bellowed with pain and spit blood into his hands, one of his molars knocked loose by the trucks of Monty’s skateboard.

He thought about the sticky, humid morning following a summer storm the night before, when he had been mowing the front lawn, tonguing the abrasion at the corner of his mouth – the result of sleeping later than his father considered reasonable and having his football helmet plucked from the floor by his bedroom door and thrown at him as a makeshift alarm. He had turned at the edge of the property to see Chloe standing at the bottom of the driveway, her arms wrapped around herself like she was cold, despite the pressing heat.

“You alright?” he had asked over the sound of the motor dying down as he came up beside her and shifted the lever on the lawnmower handle to the ‘off’ position.

She nodded, but didn’t look at him, her eyes on the lawnmower as the blades whirred to a stop. 

“What time did you stay until last night?”

He hadn’t understood the question.

“You mean the game?” he shook his head. “Until the end.”

She had looked up at him, and there were dark crescents of shadow beneath her eyes. She seemed brittle and exhausted in a way that he hadn’t seen her since before her stepfather had left, and his pulse quickened involuntarily at the confusion that tightened her expression, although she attempted to hide it from him with a small shrug.

“No, the clubhouse,” she said lightly, with the shade of a casual smile that seemed intended as a reassurance, for her or maybe both of them, but only made the alarm that sliced through him at hearing the name of that place uttered by her for the first time all the sharper. “After the basketball game. I guess I drank more than I thought. I kind of lost track of time and I didn’t see when you left.”

He thought about the afternoon before – sitting in the back of the bleachers with Bryce and Scott, passing a bottle of water at least two-thirds replaced with vodka between them, laughing when Bryce fumbled the bottle and spilled it down the front of his preppy brown polo shirt as he climbed down from the bench to share the party with Chloe and a couple of the girls from the squad. It wasn’t late by the time the game finished, but the clouds overhead darkened the sky, and the driving rain sluiced across the windshield of the Jeep afterwards had reminded him of a night the year before, when Justin had sat in the passenger seat, quiet and awkward, still dressed in his Tigers uniform, his varsity jacket pulled on over his basketball singlet and his duffel bag on the floor between his feet. 

“I didn’t go to the clubhouse,” he said, and he wished he could have lied, because terror and realisation flashed in her eyes before she managed to press the reaction down where he couldn’t see it. “I drove Scott home. His dad was on his ass about being home in time for dinner.”

“Oh,” she had said, and it sounded tight, despite that she smiled, her head tipped down to hide her expression for a moment before she chuckled, lifting her chin. “I guess maybe it was Ramon. You know, all you Mexicans look alike.”

It was the kind of self-deprecating humour they had traded from time to time when they were younger – sarcastic suggestions that he looked like he belonged on the curb outside of a hardware store and she would be better suited to the stage of a trailer park beauty pageant – and back then, it had been a comfort, a way to reclaim those assumptions that people made about them, to own the hurt before it could be weaponised against them. Now, it hurt plenty, but not because he thought she felt that way, or because it would bother him if she did. It was a clear attempt to distract him from the pain and fear that was written all over her, too big and close and sharp edged to shove down where he wouldn’t be able to see. 

“Did something happen?” he had asked her, even though he wasn’t sure he wanted to know, was terrified of the response, had answered that question himself, once, and regretted it every day since. 

She had grinned and shook her head, squinting against the morning sun cresting over the roof of the little green house.

“Aside from a hangover that’s making me seriously consider sticking my head under that lawnmower?” Chloe shrugged. “No. Nothing.”

She had laughed, and it was frighteningly hollow, and it scared him so much that he laughed along with her to drown it out.

Monty grasped the lid and lifted it from the box of polaroids, setting it to one side. 

Bryce had always liked flicking through the old snaps. Reminiscing, he called it. Thinking back on the good times. To Monty, thumbing through old photographs felt strange. There was a photograph of his abuelo in the living room, on the sideboard by the television. In his parents’ room, on his mother’s dresser, there was an old-fashioned tri-fold frame, each panel holding a wedding portrait – his maternal grandparents, his paternal grandparents, and his own parents, in the centre, his mother in a simple white frock and short veil, his father in a rented navy suit. There were no other photographs in the house. Not like the selfies and happy snaps pinned around Chloe’s bedroom, or the huge family portraits in ornate frames that hung on the walls of the Walker house, not even a string of photo-booth pictures, like he had seen taped to the refrigerator door at Justin’s apartment, faded and soft-edged with age, his mother still junkie-thin and looking edgy but grinning, tiny Justin with a mega-watt smile beaming from her lap. 

He supposed if Bryce was right – if photos were meant to capture the good times – it was probably no surprise his home was so empty of them.

Working quickly, he selected a messy stack of polaroids at random, and began flicking through them. Girls and guys in various states of undress, mostly drunk, at least half of them stoned or tripping on pills, bongs and pipes and bottles of liquor, strip-teasing and cheering each other on. Girls he had classes with and girls he didn’t know the names of, who had graduated before he was even a freshman, sitting on this same couch, in their underwear, half naked, gripping a beer bottle or head lowered over the bong, bouncing in the lap of a baseball player or bent over the back of the couch. Even the pictures that appeared harmless on their own – Hannah Baker, legs crossed at the knee, leaning back in a too-large varsity jacket – took on spiralling, sordid implications when found in this box. 

But there was no Chloe. Not in the first stack. 

Near the bottom of the third stack was a photo of Tommy Shuster, bright all-American grin in his varsity jacket, his arm slung around the shoulders of the girl who had been captain of the cheerleading team at the time, her eyelids at half-mast and her expression slack with alcohol as she leaned into his chest. Monty hesitated. In the heavy box of photographs, there were at least a handful that he was in – that was the price of admission to the clubhouse, secrets and leverage – and if someone ever cared to lay them all out, to curate and compare them, Monty’s secret would be obvious. 

It wasn’t the bong in his hand or the pills on his tongue as he grinned for the camera, not the cluster of empty liquor bottles on the table in front of him or the little cannister marked _testosterone cypionate_ , brandished between his thumb and index finger. It wasn’t even the split lip in one photo, or the finger-length shadowing across his throat in another, or the matching pair of black eyes that he wore, sitting on the couch next to Bryce, the other boy’s eye sockets also yellow-ish green with fading bruises, reluctant smiles on both of their faces as the person behind the camera made a joke about how they looked like they’d butted heads in their rush to suck each other’s dicks. 

In more than three years, and hundreds of photos of dozens of players and cheerleaders and girls and other students, Monty had never so much as kissed a girl in the clubhouse, and he never planned to. He threw himself into everything else – went harder than anybody at every other challenge than Bryce dreamt up for them, went heavy with the mommas boy and virgin jokes, went brash and violent to the point of being unapproachable, went loud and crude to the point of being irritating, of making himself impossible to like, barely tolerable – to obscure what he couldn’t admit, what the box of polaroids revealed just as clearly as the toxic culture of the team and the humiliating entrapment of a string of girls.

He wasn’t like Bryce and the other guys. He couldn’t be. 

And, thinking of that polaroid of Chloe, he wasn’t sure why he had ever wanted to be.

“What’re you doing?”

Bryce’s question immediately followed the clubhouse door swinging open, and the flash of guilt that instinctually slackened Monty’s expression in the heartbeat before he managed to wrestle it back. 

“Reminiscing,” he said, and it sounded like a word he was reading for the first time, uncomfortable in his mouth. He lifted his chin in a nod toward the box. “Good times, right?”

Bryce nodded slowly, stepping inside. He was wearing his full Liberty Tigers baseball uniform, and Monty watched him carefully, uncertain. 

“Yeah,” Bryce said. “Those seem few and far between, these days.” He looked around the small space, the cabinets and shelves, the sports equipment tucked off to one side, but apparently didn’t see what he was looking for, and returned his gaze to Monty. “You sleep here last night?”

Monty shook his head casually.

“Nope.”

Bryce watched him, but didn’t say anything. This had been the way of things between them for a while, although neither of them admitted it, not even when they were alone. When they were with the others, they acted as if nothing had changed, Monty following Bryce’s lead as always, despite that he could sense the other boy’s mistrust, could feel his standoffishness, made all the more obvious by his attempts to obscure it. Monty couldn’t be certain how far back it traced for Bryce – no one had ever accused him of being perceptive, and the other boy was no slouch at obscuring his thoughts - but for him, it was the afternoon by the waterhole, and the way Chloe’s cheeks had pinkened at the idea of the other boy’s attention. He couldn’t be certain of Bryce’s hesitation and shifting trust, or their source. The other boy had a natural tendency for strategy and a talent for manipulation that Monty couldn’t even fathom the breadth of, let alone its applications. He thought maybe Bryce’s change in attitude toward him was tied up in all of this – the Baker trial and the rumours that were starting to circulate more like facts, repeated with more and more assuredness and never twisting far from the original version – or maybe, it had started where all of this had been split open, for them. 

Justin leaving.

Justin making that accusation, and then just disappearing. Leaving all of them to deal with the aftershocks of what he had shouted at Jessica by the pool that night, bearing none of the weight of responsibility for processing or dealing with any of it. And maybe things would have been different, if it had been anyone other than Justin to make the accusation. If it had been Zach, or Scott, or Jeff, Bryce would have taken it differently. He would have recovered, if he still had Justin - his best friend, his loyal companion, the one person he trusted enough to lean on because Justin was _his_ , he had _made_ him, and with Justin, he could have weathered anything.

Without him, the wound of the accusation festered. 

In the vacuum of the other boy’s absence, Monty had tried to step up. Bryce was his friend – had offered him more protection and opportunity than anyone in his life ever had – and it had been hard, to see him struggle with the betrayal. 

At least, at first. 

Bryce wanted the reassurance of his remaining friends standing by him, craved their fealty, but at the same time, none of it was enough. No demonstration of loyalty, no amount of time or effort, no level of servitude was salve enough to heal the burn of Justin’s betrayal. In the beginning, Monty had wanted to be there for his friend. Later, and now, after months of contempt and failure and distrust and rejection, because no matter what he did, he would never be Justin, he was barely clinging to his resolve, and only doing so for his own sake. He had watched Justin reap the privileges of existing at Bryce’s right hand for so many years, had spent so many years himself, striving for that level of acceptance and security from the other boy, that he couldn’t back out now. Those things that Bryce offered that once had seemed priceless now felt like a mirage – always visible over the horizon but never attainable. 

It was the things that Bryce held close – dangled right in front of his nose – that kept Monty in place, now. Not the things he could give, but the things that he could take away. 

Monty watched Bryce cross the room and sit in the armchair on the opposite side of the coffee table. He looked down at the box of polaroids, his expression still but his blue eyes narrowed and calculating.

“Are you looking for Chloe?”

Monty slammed the blast doors down so hard on his natural reaction that his ears seemed to ring with the force of keeping the surprise and dread from registering in his expression. He could feel the muscle flickering in his jaw – he knew it was one of his tells, knew that Bryce knew it, too – but was powerless to stop it. Mechanically, fighting for a neutral tone, he shook his head.

“Why would I-“

“C’mon, man,” Bryce sighed, leaning back in the armchair and cocking an eyebrow at him. “You think I don’t know?” He smirked, cheek dimpling. “You’re a shitty fucking liar.”

Monty’s thoughts battered around inside his head like spooked animals, colliding with one another and scattering in all directions. If there was a correct response to that question, he couldn’t fathom it. And there was nothing he could do to pump the brakes, no distraction or misdirection available, no opportunity to slam his fist down on the eject button and escape, because it was just him and Bryce, and the box of polaroids, and a desperately protected secret between them. 

With ritualistic practice, built over years of weathering his father’s rage in silence, Monty kept his mouth shut and waited. 

“I mean, I see the way you look at her,” Bryce continued, satisfied that he had the floor and a captive audience. “Like you’re in a fucking rom-com or something. It’s actually sort of cute.” He chuckled, and Monty kept still and quiet, and listened. He had never been any good at dissociating, not even when his father really got going, his soul and full awareness tethered and trapped and forced to endure. He had been ridiculed and called worse things than a simp. He could deal with it. 

“I thought I saw her look at you the same way, once or twice,” Bryce shrugged at the concession. “So, I asked her about it.” It took every ounce of concentration for Monty to keep the panic rising in his chest from manifesting in his expression. _it’s OK, it’s OK, it’s OK_ , his thoughts repeated like a metronome as he attempted to halt the colour from fleeing involuntarily from his face. Bryce watched him carefully. “She said even if she did have a thing for you, it wouldn’t matter.” Bryce glanced down at the box of polaroids, then back to Monty. “Coz you’re a fag.”

If there was a single sound in the room other than the thunder of his own heartbeat, Monty couldn’t hear it. 

He knows. He _fucking knows_. 

Where his thoughts had stampeded like startled animals only a moment earlier, there was suddenly cavernous silence, shock and fear and dread and _hurt_ swiping everything else aside.

Because Bryce knew. And Chloe had told him.

He thought of the nightmares that he had as a kid, and tried to explain to her years later. The black thing, and how it grew and fed on everything terrible thing that happened, every harsh word aimed his way, every blow his father dealt him, every horrible thing he was, and he barely slept deeply enough to dream of it anymore, but every once in a while, he still woke up, and for a second, he was terrified, because he _was_ the black thing. 

_No._

It sounded like a whisper and a shriek, all at once, reverberating through him. 

Bryce was lying. He was _lying_. He had to be. 

Bryce had always this particular barb against him. More than he did to any of the other guys. Sometimes Monty could brush it off as a sarcastic replication of his own instinct to default to homophobic humour, but other times, it was too deliberately crafted to be explained any other way. Bryce had suspected, at the very least, what he was. And he wasn’t above twisting it, placing it as a weapon in Chloe’s hands, to back him into a corner where Monty had no option but to expose his lie, or hers, or both. 

But Chloe wouldn’t do that. What they had been was mostly just a memory now, what was left of it twisted and broken and terminal, despite that they tried to deny it, but she wouldn’t do that. She was better than him, in every way, and _he_ wouldn’t do that. 

They protected each other, despite that everything they had been had crumbled away in their hands, and he would protect her, now. 

“You’re right,” he said, and had to clear his throat, because the words came out like a croak. “I do, I mean, I did- I did have a thing for her.” He nodded, and hoped that it didn’t seem as obvious an attempt to convince himself of the lie as it felt. “And I lied to you. About knowing her.” Monty’s shoulders lifted in a defeated shrug. “I was jealous. She was my neighbour since we were kids and she never even noticed me.”

Bryce was right, he was a shitty liar. And he was hesitant to push his luck too far, to dig himself a hole so deep he couldn’t get out of it, in an attempt to cover up his secret and Chloe’s. Bryce would see straight through it, and start shovelling the dirt in over him. 

But it wasn’t enough. Bryce was watching him, waiting. 

An explanation was one thing. But it wasn’t what he really wanted. 

Monty swallowed thickly.

“I’m sorry, man,” he said, and forced himself to meet the other boy’s gaze. 

At first, Bryce’s expression didn’t shift at all, the disappointment and suspicion drawing his brows together and darkening his blue eyes. Monty felt his pulse quicken, and tried to keep his breathing from matching the increased pace. _it’s OK, it’s OK, it’s OK_.

Finally, Bryce smiled, a lopsided smirk dimpling his cheek.

“I appreciate the honesty, brother,” he said, his tone warm with acceptance and satisfaction. “And I know you wouldn’t ever try to make a move.” It was phrased almost like a question, or a warning, but before Monty had time to shake his head in agreement, Bryce sat forward. “Because we’re brothers. Not because you’re a fag.” He hesitated there, and Monty thought he might suffocate in the seconds of silence that ticked by before Bryce cocked an eyebrow. “Are you?”

Monty felt as though claws reached up from deep within him and tore at his insides, shredding all that he was – nothing worthwhile, but all he had left, all the same. He thought of what his father had always suspected, had always accused him of. Thought of how easily Justin had read him – they had never been friends, had never spent any significant amount of time together - and he had seen through to what he was. Justin wasn’t as stupid as Bryce tried to make him feel, but he wasn’t all that adept at reading people, either. Not with the kind of precision that Bryce could. 

Bryce didn’t need Chloe to tell him. He could see the black thing for himself. 

Not trusting himself to speak, Monty just shook his head. 

Bryce, with a nod and a smile, relented. 

“When you’re done with your reminiscing, you’ll tidy this shit up?” he suggested as he stood, adjusting the waistband of his white trousers with one hand as he waved the other at the stacks of polaroids laid out on the coffee table. Smile friendly, he cocked his head. “And how about hitting the showers, huh? We got the pep rally today.” He chuckled. “And you kinda look like shit.”

Monty nodded, his gaze on the box of polaroids.

“Yeah, man,” he muttered. “See you at the rally.”

Bryce hummed an off-beat tune to himself as he left. 

Monty waited until his footsteps had faded away, and he heard the squeal of the gate at the edge of the field rolling on its hinges. His throat felt raw and his chest felt hollow, and his fingers shook as he swept up the polaroids from the surface of the coffee table and dumped them back into the box. 

_it’s OK, it’s OK, it’s OK_

He forced himself not to look again at the polaroid of Tommy, still laying on top of the stack in his hand, as he placed them back inside the box, and reached for the lid. 

In the polaroid underneath the picture of Tommy Shuster, which slid aside beneath the shadow of the lid as Monty jammed it back onto the box, Bryce grinned and raised his red plastic cup in cheers, the front of his shirt still a little damp where he had spilled vodka at the basketball game, and Chloe lay with her face turned toward the camera, unconscious and unmoving, below him. 

Swiping a frustrated hand over his face, Monty shoved the box back onto the shelf, and left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Predictably, Monty's small victory over Bryce in the last chapter was short-lived and Bryce is back to being a horrible asshole. This chapter took quite a bit of rewatching to work in the timeline with canon, so I apologise for any continuity errors. 
> 
> Thank you to comfortwriter28 for the beta-checking and hours of chats :) This fic is now ticking towards the end and it wouldn't have gotten this far without your help! 
> 
> The next chapter is partially drafted and will be led by Chloe, filling in a missing segment of time from Joyride. I am hopeful I'll have it finished by the end of the week so that it can be posted in a week or so.
> 
> And then the next batter up is the delightful Montgomery de la Cruz Snr. 
> 
> Thank you, as always, for reading and commenting. The community here on ao3 is so lovely and your support is very, very much appreciated.
> 
> I hope you're all keeping safe and well <3


	15. Pickaxe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Filling in the afternoon where Monty and Justin are separated in Joyride.

“You know,” Amelia announced, her tone full of hopeful suggestion and the kind of bald-faced judgement that only existed between siblings. “Monty usually holds my hand on the way there _and_ the way back.” 

Chloe cocked an eyebrow, enough to let the seven-year-old know that she was fully conversant in the sarcasm that dripped from the casually offered criticism, and held out her hand. Amelia, wobbling as she braced to lift her other foot onto her skateboard, grasped her sister’s fingers tightly. 

Her balance had improved significantly since she had first started taking after-school lessons at the skatepark on Thursday afternoons. Supremely disappointed that Chloe and Monty had outgrown skateboarding by the time she was old enough that her mother would allow her to join in, Monty had taken pity on her – or, more accurately, given in to her needling and pleading – and started taking her to the skate park when he didn’t have to work and was able to get out of spending time with the guys. Bryce expected his presence when invited – because no invitation from Bryce was really an invitation at all – but Amelia’s disappointed pout was a powerful thing. 

At first, she had worn Chloe’s old helmet and, despite her protests at the girlish colour palette, her old protective pads. It was a requirement in order to secure their mother’s agreement that she be allowed to skate at all. The board itself had been a Christmas present from Chloe, one that she had hidden from her mother and stepfather until Amelia unwrapped it, fully aware that the gift would be vetoed as too dangerous and unfeminine if discovered before Amelia had the opportunity to open it with an excited squeal, hugging it to her chest where she sat cross-legged in her _Frozen_ pyjama set beside the tree. 

Even then, permission for Amelia’s first trip to the park with Monty had been a hard-fought battle, and only granted after many arguments, on the terms that it was:

1\. a once-off occurrence with no guarantee of continuing,  
2\. which was to be supervised by Chloe, and  
3\. to be halted immediately if any injury occurred. 

Amelia had scoffed, pointing with incredulity at the faded scars on Chloe’s shins, a marker of her first kick-flip attempt, and Chloe had shaken her head, willing her sister to be quiet. Reminding their mother that her first trip to the skate park with Monty had resulted in a pair of skinned shins for her and a few missing teeth for another boy was not helpful to their argument. 

That first Sunday morning, Chloe had sat in the sun on a bench at the park, close enough to comply with their mother’s terms but at a sufficient distance that Amelia couldn’t accuse her of being embarrassing. Although she would never admit it, like any younger sibling, Amelia was desperate to be her sister, to be grown and free to do as she pleased, to choose for herself, to do the sorts of exciting and dramatic things that teenagers in television shows did. Chloe felt as if she were betraying her sister, in a way, by not explaining to her that life was disappointingly unglamorous compared to the teen dramas she soaked up in front of the television, but it felt cruel to suggest that she was wrong to hope for better things. 

And anyway, Amelia’s envy of Chloe was easily surpassed by her adoration for Monty. 

Amelia idolised the older boy. Even as a toddler, when Chloe had been stuck on babysitting duty, Amelia would refuse to go down for a nap unless Monty was there, to the point that Chloe would call him in frustrated tears, having endured hours of wailing and Amelia slapping away the bottle of milk that she tried to settle her with, stubbornly resistant to being soothed by the sound of her rainmaker device or her fluffiest blanket, or even her favourite stuffed duck toy, and beg him to help her. He never did anything special – Chloe knew, she had studied him closely, looking for the secret trick – just smiled and took the bottle from her, and Amelia would accept it from him immediately, looking up at him as she lay down in her crib with her fluffy blanket and favourite duck, and drifted off to sleep. 

It only continued as she grew. Amelia would beg Chloe to play with her, in the playhouse outside or with her dolls and toys, to the point that Chloe felt like rolling her eyes with exasperation, but if Monty was around, she was instantly forgotten. He would happily crouch at the window of the playhouse where Amelia would set up imaginary ice cream parlours and grocery stores, and exchange nickels and dimes for plastic fruit and vegetables, or a paper ice cream cone, putting on voices and making up names for the shopper he was pretending to be that day. Chloe, in Amelia’s openly expressed opinion, was inferior in her efforts to play along, and was often relegated to bussing make believe tables or collecting imaginary shopping carts, which Monty, of course, found endlessly amusing. 

Despite that he had grown well over twice the size since they had first visited the skate park as kids, Monty was just as patient and gentle with Amelia as Chloe remembered he had been with her. Hoping to hide her uncertainty, Amelia had wanted to head straight for the ramps and ledges where a group of middle school boys were skating, smoking and swearing, but Monty convinced her to take it slow, crouching down so that she could hold on to him for balance while he adjusted her stance.

From her seat on the bench, Chloe had snapped photographs with her phone.

“Wooo! Go, Amelia!” Chloe had cupped her hands around her mouth as she called out, grinning at the dark look her sister shot her when, after several false starts, she managed to kick off and roll the length of the outer edge of the bowl, wobbling and hesitant, but without losing her balance. 

When she managed to repeat the attempt, rolling back to where Monty was waiting, he beamed at her, reaching down to rap lightly on the top of her helmet with his knuckles.

“Good job, squirt.”

As they walked Amelia home afterwards, the little girl smiling and tired but injury free, Chloe had texted her mother a photograph of Amelia, tongue between her teeth as she frowned with concentration, her hair in dark, fall-apart braids framing her face beneath her helmet, and both hands braced on Monty’s shoulders as he knelt to double-loop the shoelace of her sneaker, which dangled over the edge of the board. 

Amelia was allowed to continue visiting the skate park with Monty, with a strict list of rules ( _no removing safety gear, no talking to strangers, no deviating along the way, no skating near the road, absolutely no silly tricks or stunts, no sugary drinks or treats while you’re out, no leaving the house without a water bottle…_ ), but between sports, work, school and the guys, Monty’s availability could be unpredictable. In an effort to save him from Amelia’s trembling chin and brimming eyes, Chloe had plucked a flyer from the noticeboard at the Walplex, advertising beginner lessons, and had bartered with her little sister – if she would agree to attend the lessons, Chloe would pay the fee, only a couple of dollars an hour – and Monty would continue to take her skating when he could. The agreement wasn’t free of pouting and complaints, but they put on a united front for their mother and Radic, and managed to secure a tentative victory. 

_As long as it doesn’t interfere with ballet_ , their mother had insisted.

Radic hadn’t said anything, and that never boded well, but Chloe bit the inside of her cheek and left it alone.

During summer vacation, Amelia’s afternoon classes kept the same schedule, and if Monty could manage it around summer school or helping his dad on whatever job site he had picked up work on, he would normally go, but Chloe hadn’t been able to raise a response from him over text the night before, and that morning, in response to a string of messages that had eventually tapered off to random emojis, had received a brief explanation of: _sorry. working today_. 

It was a lie, she knew that much – she had seen his summer school schedule when she had shared her study notes with him – but somehow even stranger than the unnecessary fib was that it arrived only twenty minutes after Justin Foley had come tumbling unexpectedly over the back fence. Offering no explanation whatsoever outside of a cheery greeting, the boy had headed, on foot, in the general direction of Liberty. Monty’s father had made it as far as the other side of the fence, where he cursed and pounded his fist on the palings, sending a jolt of terror across Chloe’s nervous system as she prepared to make a hasty retreat toward the house, but he apparently wasn’t willing to attempt the climb, muttering and swearing to himself as he backed away.

She had called Monty a few times, confused and a little bemused by what circumstances might have possibly led to Justin’s ungraceful plunge over their shared property line, but he was letting it ring through to voicemail. It was slightly odd, but he didn’t always check his phone if he was with the guys, or working with his dad, so she was willing to let it lie for a little while longer, allowing her mind to unspool fantastic and imaginative explanations for what Justin had been doing there, and what he had done to get himself into so much trouble. 

Chloe tipped her face to the summer afternoon sunshine as Amelia’s grip on her hand flexed, tightening when the wheels of her skateboard bumped over a crack in the sidewalk or she had to manoeuvre to navigate a corner. They took the most direct route to the skate park on the way there – straight up the hill – but on the way back, took a more meandering, switchback course that flattened the steep slope to a manageable level, so that Amelia could skate home without building up a dangerous momentum. It was probably technically outlawed somewhere on their mother’s list of rules, but Chloe figured that what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her, and anyway, it was nice to walk through the middle-class neighbourhoods that swept down the hillside.

The gardens they passed were lovingly tended and neatly arranged, fresh green lawns lined with tidy hedges and colourful flowers, their scent carrying on the summer breeze. When they were small, and would spend their summers skating the neighbourhood and seeking out mischief as an excuse not to go home, Monty would lean over the fences lining the gardens that she thought were prettiest, taking his time to select the fullest bloom and pluck it free for her. He would carefully remove any thorns from the stem before handing it to her to thread into her braid or tuck into the base of her topknot. If she caught him in a silly mood, he would let her pick a sprig of lavender or a coil of jasmine and tuck it behind his ear, careful not to let it fall when he heel-flipped off the edge of the curb. 

She kept some of the flowers, pressing and drying them between the pages of the second-hand _Babysitters Club_ novels that she bought from the thrift store. The colours and fragrances faded, but she always smiled with pleasant surprise when she took a book from the shelf at the side of her desk and a blossom fell free. 

They were nothing like the flowers Bryce bought for her. 

Bunches of pastel coloured roses and creamy white hydrangea, orchids and tulips in shades of pink, romantic blooms peppered with delicately perfumed white lilies and lavender waxflower. 

The first bunch had been delivered, embarrassingly, during Biology, the delivery instructions marked specifically with the lab number and the time that she would be in class, but the breathtaking arrangement unaccompanied by a card identifying the sender. Mr Donoghue had been unimpressed with the interruption, the other girls crowding around with wide eyes and curious questions. The next bunch had arrived a few weeks later, during cheer practice. Her teammates had been equal parts impressed and jealous of her secret admirer, the delivery again arriving without a note from the sender. Sheri had smiled kindly and commented on the lovely gesture, but there had been some hesitation in her expression, and Chloe felt it, too. 

By the time the third bunch arrived during her shift at Walplex one Saturday morning, Chloe was sure that she had determined the source. By then, she had noticed Bryce’s attention on her, the glances in the hallway, his helmet turning toward her from the middle of the field during football games, a casual smile from the table where he sat amongst the other boys in the cafeteria. 

It was flattering, overwhelming, and a little bit frightening. 

Especially when Radic intercepted the fourth bunch, which arrived at the house.

“Something you’re not telling us?” he had asked, appearing in her bedroom doorway with a posy of peonies, roses and daisies in shades of blush and cream. 

Chloe, sitting at her desk taking notes from the spread of textbooks laid out in front of her and colour-coding them with bright coloured markers to share with the study group, tried to keep the anxious flush she could feel rising in her cheeks from flaring brightly enough to capture his notice. So far, she had managed to avoid bringing any of the expensive arrangements home, where there would be questions and suspicion - _who were they from? Why were they sending her flowers? What had she done to deserve them?_ \- regifting the first bunch to a frazzled Ms Bradley whose day had started with a flat car battery and hadn’t improved, and breaking up the second bunch, handing out tiny posies of three or four blooms to each of the girls at practice. The third, she had left in the breakroom at the Walplex, a spot of elegant colour in a room that was otherwise drab and unremarkable, the walls pinned with photocopied safety procedures and roster sheets, the employee of the month display left without update since the previous November.

“Oh, they’ll be from the girls on the cheer squad,” she shrugged, hoping that he couldn’t hear the tightness in her voice. It wasn’t a lie, exactly, but she hadn’t volunteered any details to her mother or stepfather before. Radic’s reactions could be unpredictable, even to mundane information if the mood struck him, and her mother’s responses were reliable only insofar as always unflinchingly aligning with her husband. Chloe had lowered her hands to her lap, wringing them together as she forced herself to meet his gaze. “I got nominated for captain. They probably just thought they would send me flowers, you know, for luck.”

Radic had simply cocked an eyebrow and tilted his head to read aloud from the card attached to the twine that bound the stems.

“These colours made me think of the dress you were wearing yesterday.”

Chloe clenched her teeth and fought the urge to avert her eyes to avoid his suspicious look. On the desk by her elbow, her phone vibrated with an incoming message. The number wasn’t saved in her phone, but the push notification, which she glanced at nervously, made the sender clear.

_you looked beautiful, by the way_

Desperate not to be asked who the text was from, or what it said, Chloe had rushed from her desk chair, reaching for the bunch of flowers, willing Radic to have mercy and hand them over without any further comments or questions. Ignoring her outstretched hands, he considered the expensive posy once more. Chloe waited, willing herself to resist the urge to avert her eyes before he had even expressed whatever criticism was brewing behind his cloudy expression, the shame so practised that it flooded through her pre-emptively, as if in preparation to swallow the impact of the harsh words to come. 

It was an unnerving surprise when he smiled. 

“Seems you’ve managed to hook yourself a good catch.” 

Radic offered the posy to her, and she accepted it hesitantly.

“You should put those in some water,” was all he said, offering the suggestion over his shoulder as he walked away. 

Somehow, it was worse – expecting disapproval and disparagement that didn’t come – because the shame and humiliation was all her own, organic and inward facing, layered thickly with contempt at her own stupidity for having thought herself important enough to him to draw comment. 

She had dumped the posy on the floor by her desk, threw her phone onto her bed, and returned to her study. 

“You need to stop.”

Bryce had looked surprised to be confronted by his locker the following day, and Chloe couldn’t quite be certain if it was because she had waited around the corner for him to appear, to be sure that he wasn’t with his friends before she approached, or if it was simply because he wasn’t accustomed to being told her couldn’t do something he wanted to do. 

“Uh,” he glanced around at the other students milling around in the hallway, who for the most part, paid them no mind. “Sorry?”

It was more a question than an apology.

“You can’t send flowers to my house, OK?” she insisted, gripping the straps of her backpack anxiously and looking anywhere but his face, afraid that if he appeared hurt by the rejection, she might not be able to finish. “I don’t even know how you know where I live, but my stepdad doesn’t like that sort of thing, so you can’t do it again.” Chloe forced herself to meet his gaze – found curiosity, lingering shock and, in the upward curve of the corner of his mouth, a hint of intrigue – and shook her head. “Just, delete my number, please.”

Without waiting for confirmation, she had turned to walk away, almost reaching the corner before Bryce had called out.

“On one condition.”

Chloe knew that she should have kept walking. It wasn’t as if he would do himself the indignity of chasing after her; Bryce Walker, unofficial king, conspicuous in his aqua blue Liberty Tigers varsity jacket, already the subject of some many girls’ attention and fantasies. He didn’t chase anybody. And still, she felt her feet slow, and she bit the inside of her lower lip. 

“Go to dinner with me,” he was speaking loudly enough that Chloe sensed the glances turned their way by the students around them. “Just one date,” he continued, and she could feel her cheeks flushing pink, even as a spark of thrill bubbled in her chest as the expressions at her periphery shifted from curiosity to envy. Against her better judgement, she turned, and Bryce smiled at her. He stood where she had left him, his shoulder propped casually against the door of his locker. He lifted the other in a casual shrug. “If it’s horrible, I promise I’ll delete your number.”

She should say ‘no’. She knew it. She should say ‘no, _thank you_ ’, because her mother had raised her to be polite, and go to Biology before she was any later for class than she already was. But Bryce glanced around at the gazes that lingered on them, students in the hallway slowing their pace in hope of hearing the outcome of his public proposition, relishing the opportunity to collect gossip fresh from the source, then returned his attention to her, his expression earnest and imploring. 

What harm could dinner do? All she had to do was eat an acceptable amount, allow him to pay the bill, and then she could leave, and the deal would be struck. He would delete her number, and she wouldn’t have to worry about pretty flower arrangements or flattering text messages or public announcements of his intentions to court her any more. She wouldn’t have to fight through the indecisive churn in her stomach, the giddy, uneven flutter in her chest battling the steadfast insistence in her head that she should stay far, far away from Bryce Walker. 

“Fine,” she said, her tone clipped and her expression guarded. “One dinner.”

Bryce’s blue eyes gleamed as he smiled. 

She had been granted a reprieve – it was close to summer vacation, and he had family and sports and other commitments before he headed away to his family’s holiday home in the Hamptons for a few weeks – but he didn’t let her forget their deal, texting her restaurant suggestions, all expensive, high class places that Chloe had walked past once or twice but never set foot inside and then, once he had left on vacation, photos of the places he was dining with his parents in the idyllic beachside town, pictures of their Michelin star meals laid out like artwork.

_What do you think looks best? Chicken, lamb, or fish?_

Chloe hadn’t told Monty. For one thing, he didn’t seem to want to know, judging by his reaction at the waterhole weeks ago. And aside from that, she didn’t quite know how. Especially considering she hadn’t told him about the flowers, either. Or the text messages. She didn’t quite understand why. She didn’t feel romantically toward him, and she was certain that he didn’t feel that way toward her, either, but it still felt like a betrayal, somehow; a rejection, or a trading up. 

Or maybe she was being silly. Maybe that was how _she_ would feel, if he were to date one of her friends from the squad, and she was projecting her insecurities onto him. It wouldn’t have been the first time. In fact, she could be quite masterful at it. 

“Holy shit.”

Chloe snapped to awareness at the uncharacteristic curse from Amelia. Their mother frowned on cursing, developing a pained expression and insisting that she had raised them to act properly if either of them let one slip around the house. On the other hand, Radic could swear like a sailor when in the mood, but that didn’t necessarily mean they had permission to do the same. Chloe had cautioned Monty against letting Amelia curse when she was with him and he had just shrugged. _Fucking_ was close enough to the first adjective he’d learned. 

“You think she’s not gonna pick that shit up at elementary school?” he had countered, cocking an amused eyebrow at her. 

And anyway, the exclamation was appropriate.

Chloe’s lips parted in surprise as she followed the thick black tyre marks from the middle of the street, up over the curb and the sidewalk, to the messy, dirty rivets torn through an otherwise tidily maintained front lawn, punctuated with two mangled standard rose bushes, torn up roots and all, and left in the wake of a beat up old Bronco, its battered frame bent and angled around the trunk of a huge oak tree. There was a third rose bush tangled in the axle and jutting out beneath the driver’s door, which had been left hanging open. Inside, in the sunlight streaming broken and scattered beams through the shattered windscreen, a calico cat lounged on the driver’s seat, leisurely grooming its paws, oblivious to the sheriff’s department stickers slapped on the windows or the caution tape strung up around the accident. 

Amelia hopped off of her board, bending down to pick it up and wandered closer for a better look.

“What do you think happened?” she asked, peering inside at the black fingerprint dust that coated the dashboard and steering wheel. A St Christopher medallion hung lopsidedly from the rear-view mirror, and the passenger side window, spiderwebbed by the sudden impact, was smeared red. 

Chloe bit the inside of her cheek.

“Nothing good, by the look of it,” she muttered and then, when Amelia attempted to lean past the caution tape to scratch the cat behind the ears, reached for her sister’s shoulder. “Come on. We should go.”

Amelia stared back at the wreck until they reached the next corner, where she was distracted by the chime of Chloe’s text notification.

“Is that your boyfriend?”

Chloe rolled her eyes.

“I don’t have a boyfriend,” she muttered, relieved that the text was actually from the study group chat and not from Bryce. She couldn’t have trusted the involuntary flutter of butterfly wings in her stomach from pinkening her cheeks. 

Amelia, carrying her board under one arm, cast her sister a sidelong look as she reached up to unbuckle her helmet, a replacement for Chloe’s hand-me-down that looked suspiciously like the one Monty used to wear when they were young and he was feeling uncharacteristically safety conscious. Colourful stickers were layered over the black plastic, skate brands and punk bands and graffiti inspired motifs layered over the top of each other as she built up her collection. Monty had given her a NOFX sticker that he’d found tucked in the back of one of his old school books, and Amelia had smoothed it carefully across the back of her helmet – exactly where the band’s logo had held pride of place on the back of Monty’s old helmet. Now, she raised her eyebrows as the strap swung loose beneath her chin.

“Does Monty know you have a boyfriend?”

Chloe pointedly returned her phone to her pocket and turned a warning look toward her sister. 

“I do not have a boyfriend,” she insisted, barely managing to stop herself short of demanding that Amelia promise not to insinuate otherwise to Monty. Already, she couldn’t be certain how much he knew, what Bryce might have said amongst his friends. She could hardly ask Bryce to keep it a secret from the other boy – as far as anyone knew or were concerned, they didn’t know one another. And aside from that, he would want to know why, and Chloe couldn’t even manage to articulate an answer to that question for herself. Instead, she pinned Amelia with a stare. “OK?”

Amelia shrugged, frustratingly and sarcastically dismissive.

“OK. Whatever.”

Chloe pressed down the urge to insist on a more committed response, especially as Amelia spotted a woman rounding the corner up ahead, walking a large Golden Retriever on a leash. Smiling brightly, she quickened her pace, already standing beside the dog, petting it enthusiastically, before Chloe had managed to catch her up. She lingered a few paces away, watching the dog as it sniffed at the base of a tree, calm and content to be slathered with attention by an unfamiliar seven-year-old girl. 

“He’s so fluffy!” Amelia grinned at the dog’s owner, her fingers threading through the dog’s thick golden coat. 

“He’s a big baby,” the woman sighed, reaching down to scratch the dog’s shoulders affectionately. “We’re pretty sure someone was in the yard last night, and he’s so placid, he didn’t even bark. Probably gave them a few licks and sent them on their way.”

Apparently taking this as an invitation, Amelia bent down close to the dog’s face to blow it kisses, and Chloe bit the inside of her lip, the rational part of her attempting to press down the instinctive spike of anxiety that tightened in her chest. There was nothing aggressive in the animal’s body language, in fact, it seemed perfectly content to be cooed over as it looked up from where its nose was buried in the grass. The dog turned its head to lick Amelia’s cheek, its huge wet tongue slicking the side of her face with saliva, and Chloe felt herself stepping forward to pull her sister back, despite that Amelia giggled with amusement. As she reached for her sister’s shoulder, a familiar truck rounded the junction opposite, tools and equipment a rattling chorus in the tray as it lurched to take the next corner at a sharp angle. Amelia stood, leaving the dog to its snuffling, and turned an excited smile over her shoulder at Chloe.

“Monty’s back.”

They walked west one block and then south two, Amelia practically trotting at a clipped pace, her braids and the straps of her helmet swinging cheerfully to match her eager gait. Chloe followed close behind, slipping her phone from her pocket to check her messages. Although it was possible that Monty hadn’t lied earlier – maybe he did work, skipping summer school in favour of making a little extra cash, it wasn’t a stretch, his father had never seen any point in him signing up to summer school anyway – he hadn’t responded to any of her calls or texts. It wasn’t necessarily unusual, his dad could be an asshole about him using his phone when he was at work, but there was something about all of it – Justin, the text, the Bronco, the dog, the way the tools had skidded and clattered as the truck rounded the corner – that sent flutters of unease trickling through her. 

Chloe looked up, and realised that Amelia had already rounded the corner up ahead, disappearing behind the edge of a tall, leaning wooden fence. She quickened her step to catch up, calling out to caution the younger girl without really understanding why.

“Amelia-“

Chloe half-jogged around the corner, and almost ran directly into her younger sister, who stood rigid on the sidewalk, her skateboard sagging in her hands. She began to ask if she was alright, as she followed the girl’s line of sight, on a diagonal trajectory to the little green house on the opposite side of the street. 

The large truck, laden with heavy tools and equipment, trembled with the force of the battle waged inside its cab. The driver’s side window was wound down, and furious shouts leaked out into the dry summer air, mostly spoken in Spanish and all coloured with rage and disgust. Chloe could hear someone breathing – short, panicked gasps – and she couldn’t quite tell if it was her or Amelia, or both, as the driver’s door was shoved open and Big Monty climbed out, dragging his son after him by the hair and a fist twisted in the collar of his shirt, and threw him to the cement driveway.

Chloe froze, her chest so tight that it felt as if her insides were constricting and her throat clamping closed on any attempt to draw breath or make a sound. 

She knew this - everyone who lived within a two-block radius, every boy on the football and baseball and wrestling teams, half the Liberty High faculty and most of the sheriff’s department and a dozen hospital staff and a handful of Child Protective Services case officers, scattered over almost two decades, knew or at the very least suspected that Big Monty beat his son. 

Monty was unemotionally honest about it, most of the time. 

And she had seen it, first hand, before. Not just the aftermath – that had become as routine as clockwork, made no easier to witness by its regularity but commonplace, all the same. She had seen the brutality that wreaked that devastation before, up close. 

Instantly, she felt as though she were fourteen again.

“The fuck have I told you about leaving that fucking bike in the driveway?”

“ _Shit_.”

Where she had instinctually frozen at the shout from outside of the bedroom, Monty had been instantly mobilised by the furious voice, jolting upright so quickly that the earbuds they had been sharing tugged loose and fell in an untidy heap between them as he lunged to snatch the keys from the cabinet beside his bed, where they had been sitting with their backs to the wall beneath the window, listening to _Bad Religion_ and sharing a bag of M&M’s while she checked his math homework. 

“You should go,” Monty said to her in urgent undertones, reaching for the partially closed door. “Just be careful the window doesn’t come down on you.”

Chloe had started to push away from the window, to protest that they should _both_ go, but as Monty opened the door, the helmet she had been wearing while they tore around the neighbourhood on his dirt bike that afternoon and had left hanging on one of the handle bars afterwards rocketed past, hurled from the other end of the hallway to clatter to a stop in the kitchen. Monty hesitated, apprehension tight in his shoulders and whitening his knuckles where he gripped the door, but before she could ask him not to - beg him not to - he stepped out into the hallway, pulling the door most of the way closed behind him. 

“Sorry, Dad,” she heard him say over the rattle of his keys. “I-“

Chloe had flinched at the dull thud of flesh on flesh, followed by an impact that rattled the window in its frame above her. Terror stole her breath and set her heart to racing, every instinct shrieking at her to escape, to protect herself, to get as far away as possible. She fought the childish urge to clasp her hands over her ears and squeeze her eyes shut at the string of sounds from the other side of the door – a resounding thud, clattering keys, the hollow impact of knees or elbows or both hitting the floor - and their hideous implications. 

Instead, with shaking hands, she tucked her phone into the pocket of her jeans and slid from the mattress. She crept toward the doorway, willing the soles of her sneakers into silence with every fibre of her being. The angle prevented her from seeing anything through the narrow space where it had been left ajar, and she slipped silently behind it, pressing back into the space between the wall and the door. 

Through the thin gap between the hinges connecting the door frame and the door, and in the murky light filtering from the living room, Chloe could make out a smear of bright, wet blood on the wallpaper at head-height, and below it, Monty on his hands and knees. She watched him reach one unsteady hand toward the keys where they had fallen to the floor in the middle of the hallway. His father stepped over his outstretched hand, and Chloe’s nails bit into her palms as she watched him lean down, twisting the collar at the back of the boy’s shirt in one hand, and raised the other, coiled into a fist. Chloe closed her eyes, her teeth cutting into the inside of her lower lip at the sound of the impact. For a breathless moment afterwards, it was quiet, and all she could hear was the thunder of her own heartbeat reverberating inside her skull. 

And then the sound of approaching footsteps. 

Chloe shoved down the urge to gasp in terror as the door was flung open, pinning her in the narrow space behind it, her back pressed into the corner as its edge slammed against the opposite wall. The coppery taste of blood slipped beneath her tongue as she clasped her hands and twisted them tightly together, tears prickling behind her eyes while she listened to Monty’s father tear the room apart on the other side of the door. 

There was precious little to destroy, the room tiny and sparsely furnished, but he made certain to leave nothing untouched, yanking the bedding free and throwing it haphazardly, scattering the contents of the packet of M&M’s that had been left there across the floor, before upending the entire mattress, tossing it aside to lean drunkenly against the other side of the door. Everything from the top of the bedside cabinet - the stack of textbooks and homework, the mostly empty bottle of water, his glasses, wallet and phone – were flung about the room in one furious swipe, followed by the lamp, the plug torn from the outlet before it was catapulted across the small space. Chloe turned her face away as the fragile globe and ceramic base shattered against the wall by the edge of the door. 

Relief was followed by an immediate flood of guilt at the sound of retreating footsteps and muttered curses, punctuated by aggressive tearing as he shredded the sports posters ripped from the walls. Trying to slow her breathing to silence, willing her racing heartbeat to follow suit, Chloe had peered through the gap along the door frame, and watched as Big Monty, standing over the boy as he slowly lifted his head, raised his booted foot. 

And now, it was the exact same moment, layered over a years’ old memory of hers, and she could only imagine how many replicated moments for Monty, as on the opposite side of the road, in the middle of a sunny summer afternoon, the man lifted his booted foot and slammed it into the back of his son’s skull, bouncing his head off of the cement driveway with a sickening thud. 

That Friday night at the beginning of freshman year – when she was sure that Big Monty was a safe distance away, could hear him kicking over the dirt bike out on the driveway, she had slipped from behind the door, clambering awkwardly over the upturned mattress, and climbed carefully up onto the exposed slats of the bedframe to slip out through the window. Eyes stinging with tears and her head spinning with residual panic, she had made it to the other side of the fence – barely, her hands scraped and bleeding when she almost lost her grip as she hoisted herself over the palings – before she had stumbled to her knees and vomited at the base of her mother’s bougainvillea. Pleading ill as an excuse to avoid the dinner table, she had curled on her mattress, the covers pulled up over her head, and texted with shaking hands.

_I’m sorry_

_i’m so so so sorry I left_

_please don’t hate me_

_I’m going to call the police_

The texts had been tapped out in quick succession, and she had been typing another plea for forgiveness, but Monty’s response had cut across it.

_please don’t do that_

_it’s not worth it_

_and i’ll never hate you_

She had begged him to come over, but he had resisted, explaining that he needed to clean his room, which she supposed was true enough, although she suspected he simply meant to spare her from the damage his father had done to him, that she had done nothing to prevent. Or perhaps he couldn’t have made the climb, even if he wanted to. 

Instead, they had texted into the night, joking about how laughably uncoordinated she was and that she would need his help to learn her new cheer routines, somehow having made the cut onto the junior squad, and how unprepared the other boys who had been selected for the football team were for his willingness to take an opportunity to slip in a dirty and dangerous play. She had marvelled over his invitation to the team captain’s house – trading sarcastic suggestions for how far into the fancy neighbourhood he was likely to make it the following day before he was stopped by the police, private security, or some concerned citizen. Her bet was three blocks. His was three feet. 

“Stay here.”

Without a plan or any conscious concept of what she planned to do, Chloe reached for Amelia’s skateboard, slipping it from her sister’s grasp, and stepped off of the curb. 

“Chloe…” Amelia whimpered, beginning to take a step after her.

“Stay _there_ ,” Chloe insisted, and without looking back, ran across the street. 

What could have been no more than eight yards felt like a mile, and Chloe gripped the tail of the skateboard in both hands, the grip-tape gritty beneath her freshly painted fingernails as she watched Big Monty cross to the tray of his truck, his chest heaving with rage and exertion. He shoved aside tools noisily, oblivious to her approach. At this distance, she could see the welts and scratches on Monty’s arms from attempting to ward off attack in the constricted space of the truck’s cab, and the blood trailing from an abrasion at his temple as he raised his head. From the tray, his father hefted a heavy, dirty pickaxe and, wrapping both hands around the grip, took two steps to close the distance between himself and his son, and raised it over his shoulder. 

Amelia’s scream cut through the quiet afternoon.

Instinctively, Monty jerked into a protective coil.

The pickaxe splintered the cement driveway three inches from the back of his skull. 

Chloe stumbled to a stop at the bottom of the driveway and brandished the skateboard over her shoulder, the heavy metal trucks faced outwards, the way she had watched Monty raise his board to swing it at the boy who had laughed at her, that first day at the skate park.

“ _Don’t_ ,” she said, as Big Monty drew the pickaxe back to take another swing. She had meant to speak strongly, for the command to carry weight, but it slipped from her lips barely above a whisper, every part of her trembling with fear and fury as the man turned to look at her, and chuckled. 

“What’re you gonna do with that, _puta_?” he leered at her, the pickaxe held lazily by his side, his brutalized son lying bloodied on the driveway behind him. “Try to hit me?”

She took a breath and set her jaw. 

“No,” Chloe answered, hoping that her voice didn’t sound as if it were quaking as much as her hands, which scarcely managed to maintain a grip on the skateboard. “But I bet I can smash every window on that truck before you can catch me, you pathetic old drunk.”

The man stared at her, his expression full of rage and hate, and inside, Chloe battled to hold on to her resolve, refusing to yield, keeping her gaze locked on his. After a long moment, he scoffed, and tossed the pickaxe carelessly to the pavement. Turning, he paused to hock and spit in Monty’s direction, and took one last look at her over his shoulder before he went into the house. 

Adrenaline fleeing all at once, Chloe’s knees trembled, and she barely managed to remain upright as she lowered the skateboard. Wincing, Monty pushed himself up into a sitting position. His face was a mess of welts and bleeding grazes, blood leaking from a split that cut through his upper and lower lip. One of his eyes was already swelling and he closed both, the bridge of his nose screwing up with pain when Amelia flew past Chloe and launched herself at him, flinging her thin arms around his neck. Placing an unsteady hand on her back to comfort the frightened girl, Monty looked up at Chloe over her head. 

“You shouldn’t have done that.”

It was both unexpected and exactly what she anticipated he would say. 

The skateboard in her hand felt unreasonably heavy as it sagged from her grasp, and Chloe shook her head, raising her shoulders in a helpless shrug.

“Why?”

He exhaled, and more than anything else, just looked incredibly tired. 

“Because it’s not fucking worth it.”

They had had this conversation before. More than once. And she knew what he meant – they both did. It broke her heart.

Not _it’s not worth it_.

Me.

 _I’m_ not worth it. 

“What do we do?” Amelia asked, her voice trembling and her cheeks damp with tears as she lifted her face from Monty’s shoulder. She looked back at her sister. “Do we call the police?”

Carefully, Monty shifted her from his lap, and then slowly, gingerly, got to his feet. Leaning down, he reached for the pickaxe and, without looking at the splintered pavement where it had crashed down by his head, returned it to the tray of the truck with the rest of his father’s tools. 

“No, squirt,” he said, as he lay the pickaxe down carefully. “Chloe’s gonna take you home.”

He turned and, with a small smile, reached to gently rap his knuckles on the top of her helmet. Amelia’s chin trembled but she nodded and moved to Chloe’s side. Although Chloe expected her to reach immediately for her skateboard, to wrap her arms around it and hug it to her chest like a shield, to her surprise, Amelia burrowed to her side. Numbly, Chloe wrapped her arm around her sister’s small, trembling shoulders. She looked up at Monty, her throat tightening as she watched him look at the broken cement, stained with coppery blood where his head had lay in the moment his father had swung.

“Text me, later?” Chloe asked, and he blinked, looking up at her. “Please?”

He nodded, and waited until they turned toward the corner before heading into the house.

Later that night, Chloe scrolled through the photographic menu Bryce had sent her from his family’s dinner party – scallops, pork chops with figs, squash risotto and herb-crusted cauliflower steaks and filet mignon wrapped in prosciutto with blue cheese sauce – when Monty’s text slid across the screen. 

_thanks_

Chloe flicked aside the messages from Bryce and tapped back a response. It wasn’t what she wanted to say, but she knew he would balk at anything more direct, and would understand what she meant, anyway.

_it was worth it_

**You** are worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, thank you, thank you to comfortwriter28 for the beta checking and chats. This one was harder to write than I was anticipating and I hope it wasn't equally hard to slog through.
> 
> No reprieve from the dysfunctional de la Cruz family horror-show in the next chapter, I'm afraid, which is the third parent-led chapter - this time looking at things from Big Monty's perspective. 
> 
> I hope you're keeping safe and well, and are as excited for season 4 as I am :)
> 
> Thanks for reading and commenting, as always <3


	16. Big Monty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Third up in the parent led chapters is father of the year, Mr de la Cruz
> 
> Warning - this chapter contains domestic violence (unsurprisingly) and touches on issues including fertility and abortion.
> 
> I apologise in advance - most of this isn't nice (honestly, how could it be) and this is the longest chapter yet. It hasn't been beta checked yet, so I'm sorry for any errors that have slipped in - I wanted to get it out ahead of S4, in case the new season completely retcons Monty's family and backstory, as the writers like to do :)

He wanted to be a father.

It wasn’t a dream – he had watched his own father toil in pursuit of the American ideal for so long that he didn’t believe in those – but being a parent seemed to be something special.

His father, Carlos Ocampo de la Cruz, had made the border crossing in 1972, with two other men, a woman, and her two children, led by a coyote who took the exorbitant fees he charged for his services and then abandoned them at the Texas border where they slipped through a hole snipped in the boundary fence of a sprawling ranch outside of El Paso, with nothing more than a gesture in the general direction of North. So, he had walked, with no belongings aside from a rucksack of clothes and a few bills in American currency in the pocket of his jeans.

It was a story he had grown up hearing – how the other men had chosen to make their own paths, preferring the increased likelihood of travelling undetected by separating from the group – while his father had remained with the woman and her children. They didn’t know one another – she was from a different village – but her children were young and frightened, watching him with huge, dark eyes as they passed through the barren stretch of land, picking their way across an arroyo and navigating the endless maze of rocks and mesquite and dry, skeletal trees on the other side. He would lie in bed at night, imaging his father, one child riding on his back and the other propped on his hip, striding confidently across the hard-baked desert landscape, pausing only to wipe the sweat from his brow and check his bearings by the position of the sun overhead. 

Compared to the lush and urban California suburbs, his father’s descriptions of Texas sounded almost like an alien planet, barren and unforgiving, an environment that only the toughest of men survived. And his father was tough. He wasn’t unfriendly or scary, like some of the men that he worked with, who would sometimes visit the house in the evening for a beer or a meal. And he wasn’t a large man, standing a few inches shy of six-foot with a wiry frame built on hard work that roped his arms with muscle and roughened his hands with calluses. But he was strong, and resilient, and proud. He didn’t feel the need to be outspoken or boastful, drawing respect from their neighbours and the other members of their church with his quiet sense of duty. 

When he was young, there was no one in the world that he wanted to be like, more than his father. 

And there was nothing more important to Carlos than family.

Carlos and Ana met at the hardware store where they both worked. She was beautiful and confident, beaming a smile as she wished the rudest and most insufferable of customers a blessed day. The first time she had winked at him, from the opposite side of the break room, Carlos thought that his heart would burst out of his chest, it began beating so hard.

That was another of his favourite bedtime stories, after the border crossing.

Ana was from a tiny town in El Salvador, and like Carlos, had travelled far from the tiny two-room apartment she had grown up in to seek opportunity, accepting an international study transfer to improve her spoken English and continue her History degree. Carlos found her fascinating, this beautiful, opinionated, practical girl, who could change a truck tyre but couldn’t cook to save her life, who had deferred returning to her studies back home and had overstayed her student visa by years in order to work as a cashier at a hardware store and send money to her family in El Salvador, but still dreamed of one day being having a career as a lecturer in military history or a curator in a magnificent old museum somewhere. 

“Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak,” Carlos had offered when, on their second date, after a cheap and cheerful dinner at a tiny Cuban-owned diner, she had paused at the end of a long discussion about the value of learning from history, and asked him to share his favourite lesson from a historical figure. It was the most engaging conversation he could remember having in years, and he had chosen carefully, hoping to impress her with his selection and what it implied of his reading habits. 

“ _Art of War_ ,” she had grinned brightly, her dark eyes gleaming with delight. “Very good, Carlos.”

He had smiled humbly, pressing down his glee, as he asked, “And yours?”

Ana had lifted her shoulder in a shrug, as if the answer should be obvious, and perhaps it should have been, given her major in modern European history, with a focus on the Eastern Front during the Second World War, but she spoke with such joy about her passion, he couldn’t resist inviting her to continue, and she indulged him, raising a conspiratorial eyebrow. 

“Never invade Russia in the winter.”

“What does that mean, mama?” he would ask, when his father was working late, and his mother would tell him bedtime stories instead. She would grin, and he knew that it was coming, but he would squeal and squirm anyway as she dove her hands beneath his quilt to tickle him, raising her voice dramatically over his gleeful giggles. 

“Because of _rasputista_!”

His parents had been married in a small ceremony at their local church, and almost precisely nine months later, he had been born, a robust little boy with a head full of dark curls, who they named Montgomery, after her favourite military leader who had served in both the Great War and the Second World War. Their income was modest, at best, and after she had left her job at the hardware store to start their family, she had taken a cash-in-hand job working as a nanny for a family with two little girls. They rented a small cottage at a discounted rate with the agreement that they would repair the leaking roof, the rotting floors and the cracked window and door frames themselves. Carlos wasn’t a carpenter, but he was proud and hardworking, and Ana was practical and unafraid to try new things. They treated the tiny house as their own, taking time and care as they worked together to prise up decaying old floorboards in the evenings after work, sand and re-paint the aged porch, and clear and replant the gardens with flowers and vegetables and fruit trees. 

They had little, but it was a happy childhood, and Montgomery rarely felt as though he was missing out on anything. The children he grew up with were mostly from immigrant families as well, and his childhood was filled with his mother’s bright dresses and his father’s cooking, music wafting through the house on summer evenings and hot chocolate with cinnamon on winter mornings, weekend mass and parties and joy. Their house was always open to the neighbours and their friends, whether they were in need or simply seeking a little bit of company, so that Montgomery felt as if the whole neighbourhood was his family, an endless parade of aunts and uncles and cousins, sharing what little they had with each other, always arriving with gifts of traditional food or bottles of home-distilled alcohol, fruits and vegetables from their gardens or just some songs and stories and laughter that lasted into the night. 

When he started high school, his mother began working for another family – a couple who had recently moved to the area for the husband’s high-flying career, which left his wife in need of assistance caring for their three young children. Ana had been out of work for a little while since the previous family she had worked for had outgrown her. Although there were still plenty of jobs available that other people considered below their worth, it was not as easy as it had been in the seventies to find employers who were willing to pay cash, or overlook their undocumented status. It was a risk – as many simple, daily tasks were – the possibility of exposure and deportation constantly lurking behind the otherwise banal obligation of medical appointments, paying bills and visiting the post office. 

The woman, desperately grateful for the assistance and the years of experience that his mother offered, had smiled and waved her hand carelessly. 

“If you can help me wrangle these three into the car in time for school drop off, I couldn’t care less if you were from Mexico or Mars.”

And so, Ana had begun sharing their treasured bedtime stories of Carlos’ heroic border crossing and _rasputista_ and historical tales from her abandoned degree with another generation of children, while Carlos worked long and hard hours to prove his worth after being promoted to an assistant management position at the hardware store, and Montgomery found a job working evenings and weekends at a corner bodega owned by one of the neighbours. Although he was a citizen by birthright, they paid him cash to avoid the requirement for his parents to sign a work permit on his behalf, and in return he worked hard, unloading delivery trucks, stacking shelves, cleaning and helping the owner with general maintenance, repairing a broken door lock and faulty electrical fittings, and the like. 

Marisol, the owner’s niece, was two years his junior, and tended the register on weekends. 

A slightly built girl with long dark hair that she wore loose to her elbows and a sprinkle of freckles across her nose and cheeks, Marisol was sweet and gentle and unassuming. She wasn’t outspoken or beautiful, she didn’t wear bright makeup or short skirts like some of the girls that he went to school with, and she took her faith seriously, a delicate silver crucifix worn on an angel-hair chain resting at the base of her throat. When she was ten, her parents had crossed back over the border, leaving her with her aunt and uncle while they travelled to Culiacan to her paternal grandfather, who had suffered a stroke. Unexpectedly, the old man had survived, but required constant care, and while her parents resettled in Mexico, Marisol had remained in the States to finish high school and attend college. 

Montgomery, tired of the girls from his high school and their expectations of being treated like a woman when they acted like children, was taken with the girl’s soft, low voice, her small, delicate hands, and her quiet self-assuredness. She knew exactly what she wanted from life – graduation, a college degree in business, specialising in hospitality and tourism, and a career working in management in a beautiful hotel in a big city somewhere. She wanted children – lots of them – she was terribly lonely as an only child, with no siblings and no cousins, and would keep an aviary of birds and a pond of fish, and she would live with her family in a warm, quaint house painted green.

“Green?” he had grinned at her, as they took out the trash and prepared to close the store at the end of a late shift. “Like _aguacate_?”

She had smiled, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as she lifted her shoulder in a shrug.

“Sure.”

For him, life had always been a bright, loud swirl of colour and noise, a melting pot of his mother’s beauty and charm, his father’s connectedness to family and community, school and church and all of the people he had grown up with. Marisol was like a calming force, an anchor or a safe haven, quiet and resolved and able to draw him back into himself when he felt adrift. She came to his soccer games and let him take her out for ice cream, and smiled with soft chastisement when he ‘accidentally’ tore a packet of her favourite watermelon candy while stacking the shelves, requiring them to write off the loss, and he would grin at her as he popped one in his mouth and offered her the packet - it would have been a shame to let the candy go to waste. 

He dedicated so much time and attention to his growing love for the girl, he didn’t realise that his parents’ marriage was crumbling until the moment it fell apart. 

Montgomery had returned home from work one evening to find the house quiet and scarcely lit, absent the music and chatter and intoxicating smell of his father’s cooking that normally poured from the open windows. Concerned, he had entered quietly, closing his fist around his keys to silence them. There was a light on in the kitchen, and he had moved silently toward it, dread weighing every step. The last time he could remember the house being so subdued, his mother had received news that her father had passed away in El Salvador. If she had gone to be with her family, she might never have made it back, and although her mother assured her that she should stay where she was, it had broken her heart to do it. 

Pausing by the kitchen doorway, he had been careful to keep to the shadows as he peered around the edge of the doorframe. His parents sat at the little wooden kitchen table – the same table they had had since he had been barely a toddler, its legs dinged from carelessly tucked in chairs and raucously thrown around toys, its surface scratched and stained after years of parties and family dinners. Carlos sat on one side, his fingers steepled beneath his chin, the light overhead casting shadows that seemed to deepen the lines that creased his forehead and crinkled at the corners of his eyes. He looked paler and older than Montgomery remembered seeing him ever before, and when he tried, he realised that he couldn’t remember the last time he had seen his father smile. His mother, sitting opposite, had loosened her hair from the long braid that she normally wound it into, but the bag that she carried to work, full of activities and books and snacks that she thought the children might enjoy, remained unpacked, abandoned on the kitchen counter. 

“You’re in love?” his father sounded defeated in a way he had never heard before. “With this woman’s husband?”

His mother, on the other hand, had simply sounded exhausted.

“No, Carlos,” she said softly, her head in her hands, her long black hair, threaded sparingly with silver, trailing between her fingers. “I’m in love with _her_.”

His father had said nothing, simply lowering his head, and with a terrible, rending, silent shriek, Montgomery’s world had collapsed.

There was no fighting, no bitter divorce or custody battle. No wailing or begging or recriminations. No claims to what was theirs, no arguments over how they would divide what they shared, no disagreements over who would leave and who would stay or when or how. After twenty years together, his parents had simply let go of one another. 

And it infuriated him.

It was maddening, the way that they sat down with him to calmly explain the circumstances, that his mother would be moving out, that she and her _lover_ , that duplicitous, unfaithful housewife, would be moving to San Diego once her divorce finalised, and he was welcome to be as involved in their lives as he felt comfortable being moving forward. They insisted that, more than anything, Ana hoped that she could still be a part of his life; his high school graduation, and whatever came after – birthdays, Christmases, his wedding, his children. They reassured him that they both loved him, and that none of this was his fault. 

Montgomery _knew_ that.

Of course, it wasn’t his fault. 

He wasn’t the one who had lied, who had sat in church beside him and his father and acted moved by the sermons and teachings, all the while harbouring sin and deceit. He wasn’t the one who had destroyed two families, for the sake of passion and connection and _love_. He wasn’t the one who had shredded his father’s pride, crushed his father’s spirit, and broken his father’s heart.

Montgomery told his mother to rot in hell.

She left the next morning, without either of them saying goodbye.

Marisol was a source of comfort and strength. His cheeks had flared with shame and he had barely been able to find the words, let alone choke them free, to explain to her what his mother had done, what she was. Disgust and rage and pain boiled inside of him as all of those memories - the bedtime stories, the late nights when she would help him with his homework, bath-time and fashioning beards out of bubble mix while they sang _Arroz con Leche_ and other nursery rhymes, dancing with her in the kitchen on a Sunday afternoon, after she had had a few glasses of tequila and her smile was calm and beautiful – turned grey and ashen. As he cursed his mother and her lover and the damage they had wrought, Marisol had pressed her lips together and looked at him sadly.

“I’m sorry, Monty,” she murmured, reaching to touch his face. “ _Te quiero_.”

He loved her, too. 

They married in the fall, before she started her first semester at the local community college. The ceremony was small – his father, her aunt and uncle, a few members of their church. Carlos had looked at him across the kitchen table when they had drafted the guest list, and Marisol had bitten her lower lip anxiously, but neither of them had suggested that Montgomery consider inviting his mother, the pain and the rage that it fuelled too close and raw. It had been a crisp but sunny day, and he had been more anxious than he could ever remember being in his life, fidgeting in his rented navy suit, checking and re-checking his tie in the mirror.

“Calm down, _mijo_ ,” his father had soothed, reaching to smooth the collar of his shirt. “Enjoy it.”

And he did. Marisol was lovely and full of quiet joy in a simple white frock, the sun beamed in through the church windows, and they were happy.

Marisol took to her studies with passion and excitement, Montgomery took a job working for a construction company erecting formwork for new office blocks in the city and, after she moved in with him and his father so that they could work on saving for their own home – the little green house that she dreamed of – they began to try to start a family.

And nothing happened. 

The first couple of times, when her period arrived on schedule, they had been disappointed, but not disheartened. Marisol bought a calendar to mark out her cycle, and it felt a little awkward and mechanical, but they tried to make the most of the window when ovulation should have been taking place. 

Still, nothing.

The neighbourhood women offered advice – old wives tales about honey and cinnamon supporting ovarian function, propping her hips up on a pillow with her legs in the air after sex to ‘let gravity do the work’, drinking cough syrup and making sure that Montgomery wore boxers instead of briefs if they wanted any chance of conceiving a girl – and as silly as some of them sounded, the longer they tried, unsuccessfully, the less silly the ideas felt, and Marisol was willing to try anything. She adjusted her diet, took vitamins and supplements, monitored her sleeping patterns and, still, it made no difference. 

“Maybe you could make an appointment at Planned Parenthood?” Carlos suggested one evening as he washed the dishes from dinner, while Marisol cleared the table. “They do fertility testing, scans, all sorts of things.”

Montgomery, sitting at the table while he finished his beer, scoffed.

“Yeah, all sorts of things like killing unborn babies, pop.”

They prayed, together and alone, in church and before bed and in the quiet spare moments they found. And it made no difference. 

After a year, the disappointment and guilt and stress were wearing on Marisol. She felt broken, and her dreams of a large family full of happy, smiling children began to seem more and more unattainable. In her second year of study, she reduced her course load, finding herself struggling to focus, her anxiety increased exponentially as she worried that the stress in itself was contributing to her failure. 

She never suggested – never even gave Montgomery the impression that she had considered – that their lack of success was the result of some anatomical failure on his side of the arrangement, but she didn’t have to. The possibility plagued him, gnawing behind every thought. At first, he prayed over it, and it brought him some comfort, having faith that whatever happened, it was out of his hands, and would be as it should. But they rolled into a third year, with no change, and Marisol’s crumbling resolve finally gave, as she decided to defer her study after failing to complete two units. It wasn’t enough anymore. 

They were good people. They didn’t deserve this. 

More than anything, Montgomery wished he could speak to his mother. And he hated himself for it.

Where prayer failed, alcohol helped. 

Marisol, smaller and frailer than she had ever been, looked at him with dark, worried eyes each time he opened another beer in the evening, but said nothing. 

“Maybe you both need a break from trying,” his father had suggested, pouring hot chocolate into mugs from a small copper saucepan on a chilly Saturday morning. “Focus on your other goals. You’re so close to your house deposit. Maybe it would be nice to have something else to look forward to.”

As he usually was, his father was right. 

There was still a sadness – something crushed and unresolved in her - but Marisol took enthusiastically to hunting for the quaint family home she had always wanted. Maybe she didn’t have the family she had wanted to fill it with, just yet, but this was something she could control, something she could set goals and work towards. She found a full-time job, cleaning and housekeeping, and at night they would go through the newspaper and internet real estate listings. It was hard, sometimes, going to open viewings and seeing other young couples, occasionally with a child or two in tow, or a healthy round baby bump cradled protectively, but Marisol was determined. All of her other dreams may be on hold – she refused to let go of the little green house. 

And they found it. 

It wasn’t green; not when they bought it. It was a faded sort of lemon yellow, the paint peeling from the weatherboards after years of neglect, and it needed a lot of work, but it was in their budget, and not too far from his father’s neighbourhood, and after the settlement was confirmed, four years almost to the day since they had been married, for the first time that he could remember, Montgomery enjoyed a beer to celebrate, and not to drown out the pain of failure. 

They worked together on the house and all of the improvements it needed – replacing the old carpets and linoleum, tearing down and applying new wallpaper, repairing window frames and roof shingles. Carlos came by on the weekends to help them clear the overgrown backyard and install a paved patio area. Marisol allowed them to convince her it wasn’t safe for her to work on the roof while they made repairs, but she refused to be dissuaded from participating in painting the house. Together with Carlos, she selected a shade of green – not so different to the flesh of an _aguacate_ , after all – at the hardware store, and he mixed the tins of paint for her. 

One evening in late Spring, as he scrubbed the paint from his hands and arms in the kitchen sink, Marisol had called to him softly. 

“Monty?” she was standing by the kitchen doorway, ashen-faced and unsteady, a white plastic pregnancy test clasped between trembling fingers, green paint caked around the edges of her fingernails and staining her knuckles. “Does this look like two lines to you?”

No one had been more pleased with the news than Carlos. His dark eyes had filled with joyful tears and he had embraced them both tightly as they tracked along the laugh lines that crinkled at the corners of his eyes. He threw them a party to announce the news, on the day that Marisol reached the end of her first trimester, and although her parents couldn’t be there, the house was filled with the neighbours and friends that they had grown up with, brimming with food and music and congratulations. 

Again, Montgomery felt that pang of need, a knee-jerk reaction that he was helpless to control, the unwanted desire to share the news with his mother.

He opened another celebratory beer, and drowned it. 

While he picked up extra shifts with different contracting crews around the city, constructing buildings one week and demolishing them the next, for the extra money they would need to fund their growing family, Marisol took responsibility for setting up the nursery. The second bedroom of the house was small but offered enough space for a second-hand crib, a change-table, and a feeding chair. There was no shortage of friends and neighbours with hand-me-down furniture, baby clothes or advice. The pregnancy was hard on Marisol, sickness persisted well beyond her first trimester and she struggled as the baby drained her iron stores and sapped her energy. But she pressed on with determination and grit, cradling the growing curve of her stomach protectively. 

At twenty-weeks, they looked up at the black and white images wriggling on the sonographer’s screen, and squeezed on another’s hands when she confirmed that they were having a boy. 

“Don’t you think that would be cute?” she smiled, embracing the smooth curve beneath her nightgown with both hands as they lay in bed one night, discussing potential names. “Big Monty and Little Monty.”

A part of him loathed the idea of passing on a name that his mother had selected, but she had looked up at him with such simple joy that he couldn’t deny her.

Marisol went into labour unexpectedly eight weeks before her due date, ten days before she and her employer had agreed that she would finish working. As she scrubbed the grout in the shower of the cavernous, unoccupied house owned by an investment banker who was summering in Greece, she had straightened for a moment to relieve the ache in her lower back, and her waters had broken. 

Terrified – almost equally by using her employer’s telephone than the sudden onset of labour – she had called Carlos. Montgomery was working on an asbestos removal project in the city, and aside from how long it took to safely remove and dispose of all of the required protective equipment at the end of each shift, was over an hour’s drive away. 

On the way to the banker’s house, Carlos was pulled over by a sheriff’s deputy for driving ten miles over the posted speed limit. 

By the time Montgomery had made it to the hospital, Marisol had been in labour for hours, her face drawn with fear and pain. She had been waiting outside of the tall gates that fenced the banker’s home and had panicked when, instead of the familiar old pick-up truck, a police cruiser had pulled up to the curb, the officer inside rolling down his window to ask her if she was Marisol de la Cruz. Her first and only ride in a police vehicle had been to the local hospital emergency room, where an immediate transfer was arranged to the maternity ward on the opposite side of the hospital campus. By the time he had found the birthing suite, he was frantic and furious, taking both of her hands in his when she reached for him.

“They took your dad,” she whispered to him through teeth gritted against the pain of a contraction, tears gathering along her eyelashes. “The police arrested him. I don’t know where he is.”

Eight more hours of labour passed before Montgomery Carlos de la Cruz was born via emergency caesarean section and transferred immediately to the neonatal intensive care unit.

Two weeks of tests, monitoring and incubation followed before they were allowed to take their son home. 

And a month after becoming a first-time grandparent, twenty-eight years after striding across that arroyo by the Texas border, without ever meeting his grandson, Carlos was deported, and Montgomery lost the only parent he had left.

~

From the beginning, the kid was tough.

He had to be, to survive at all, his liver and kidneys only sputtering into functionality after almost two full weeks under the light of the hospital incubator. 

And then, they had brought him home, and that presented a whole new raft of challenges.

Neither of them had any idea what to do with a newborn baby, and while Montgomery reeled from the loss of his father, smothering his devastation with alcohol and insistence that everything was fine, Marisol tried to soldier on. The kid hardly cried, and that was the single saving grace of the entire ordeal, because he didn’t do anything else, either. He didn’t sleep, he didn’t latch, and as a result, he didn’t meet his growth milestones for months, until every weigh in at the doctor’s office felt like a failure to Marisol. He didn’t take the bottle, not for weeks and weeks of trying and frustrated tears and several expensive trials with this bottle and that attachment and a cupboard full of different tins of formula. 

“Is there something wrong with him?” Montgomery had demanded of the doctor, on one rare occasion when he had attended a check-up appointment with Marisol. “Why doesn’t he know how to do anything?”

The doctor had glanced at Marisol, who held the kid loosely in her arms, weighed with exhaustion that shadowed her eyes, before looking at him.

“There’s nothing wrong, Mr de la Cruz,” she assured him, with a tight smile. “Babies just develop at different rates.” She cocked her head. “Little Monty is very resilient. But I suspect that he may not feel connected with you both, just yet.”

Connected?

Fucking bullshit.

And that had been the first and last time anyone ever referred to the kid as Little Monty in his presence. He was aware, peripherally, that people called him Big Monty, but they never did it to his face. Not if they didn’t want their head ripped off, or a broken nose, if he was having a particularly bad day.

The kid eventually reached all of those milestones, but he continued to be a late bloomer through his toddler years and after that, and it wore on Marisol. She felt defeated by motherhood, her dream turned to a gradual, torturous nightmare of trying and failing, and after her first experience, she was terrified of falling pregnant again. She grew cold and distant, disconnecting the passion and drive and joy she had once felt when she dreamed of her future, and packing them all away. She barely ever let him touch her, anymore, and she certainly never tried to touch him. 

It wore on the kid, too. Teachers and doctors and, when he reached, elementary school, the counsellors on staff insisted there was nothing wrong with him. He could read at an acceptable level, his comprehension was slightly behind but nothing that couldn’t be addressed, at his age. There were no issues with his mechanical or cognitive functions whatsoever. 

“So, he’s just a fucking idiot?” Montgomery had demanded, frustrated. Marisol sat silently beside him in the counsellor’s office, while the kid sat on a chair outside, swinging his feet. “Is that what you’re telling me?”

“He’s not an animal to be trained, Mr de la Cruz,” the counsellor had explained, thin impatience threading through the words. “We can offer him all the academic support in the world, but he needs nurturing.”

What he needed was to buckle down and toughen up, and while he struggled with the former, the kid had a natural knack for the latter, that went beyond simple survival as he grew. He could be trained, alright – fuck that idiot counsellor and his nurturing bullshit. He could be trained to take a blow and to recover from one, he could learn obedience through punishment, and he could make up for all of the things he couldn’t do by defending himself from those who could. He wasn’t a smart kid, but he was a physical one, fearless in the face of physical harm, aggressively competitive in team sports and, in time, so quick to anger and expressing it through violence that he became a kid that the other parents in the neighbourhood warned their children to stay away from.

That toughness became one of the only things that he trusted about the kid. 

Montgomery had been frustrated but unsurprised when, less than five minutes after he had sent the kid to collect a couple of bottles of acetone while he waited at the hardware store paint counter for the tin he had ordered to be mixed, a raised, incensed voice had floated along the isles. Once he had collected the tin, with no sign of the kid, he had wandered toward the sound and found him and the indignant voice in the same place, less than two feet from the shelves of acetone. The source of the voice was a man in his forties, with a sweep of chestnut hair threaded with grey. A boy, sixteen, maybe seventeen, stood beside him in designer jeans, an expensive haircut and a dimpled smirk, although that slid from his face immediately when Montgomery had approached. 

Both of his blue eyes were ringed with the ugly purple-green of fading bruises. 

“Is there a problem?”

The man looked at Montgomery the way people had been looking at him his whole life. Like his work boots and the tone of his skin and the remnants of the hybrid accent leftover from his parents told them all they needed to know about him. 

“There is, actually,” the man said, in the sort of tone that Montgomery guessed he got a lot of opportunity to perfect when he demanded to speak to the manager of any and every establishment that wasn’t up to his high standards. “This is your son?”

The kid stood silent and still beside him. Montgomery cocked an eyebrow and offered no further response, waiting. 

“Your kid left my son with two black eyes after football practice last week,” the man elaborated, indicating to the boy and the pair of unmissable shiners that darkened his eye sockets. The boy, for his part, looked as though he was struggling to press down the embarrassed flush that pinkened his cheeks as Montgomery’s dark gaze slid over him. The man pointed an accusatory finger at the kid. “Your boy is a thug.”

Well, sure.

He was hardly the first parent who had ever come knocking on the front door, demanding that he keep the kid away from their child. Mostly, it didn’t require any intervention on his part - the kid did that for himself.

The other boy, standing to the man’s right, wilted visibly at his father’s confrontational stance, although he tried to hide it. 

“Dad, it’s not a big deal,” he insisted, his tone placating and edged with a hint of pleading. “It was just a tackle. It happens.”

The man choked on a wordless sound of indignation. 

“It was dangerous and irresponsible, and the least he can do is offer you an apology.”

Montgomery raised his eyebrows and turned to the kid. 

“Well?” he prompted. “You want to apologise to your friend?”

The man didn’t appear to catch his meaning, folding his arms and waiting expectantly for compliance, but his boy did, his blue eyes flicking uncertainly to the kid as he shoved his anxiously fidgeting hands into his pockets. It wasn’t an invitation, or a direction – it was a warning. 

_Don’t you dare apologise to this piece of shit._

The kid was a goddamn idiot most of the time, but he understood instruction, and he could be stubborn, like his mother. He refused to engage with any of them, fixing his gaze on a spot on the floor a few feet away and locking his jaw so tight that a muscle flickered beneath his ear. A few tense moments passed, and the kid’s knuckles went white with the tight grip he maintained on the bottles of acetone, but he held his silence. 

The man scoffed. 

“That’s some connection you have with your boy, there,” the man commented, his voice full of scorn. “Real top-notch parenting.”

What he wanted to do was slam his fist into the prick’s face. Break that perfectly straight nose or knock out a few of those porcelain veneers. What he itched to do was throw him to the polished cement floor of the hardware store and snatch a bottle of acetone from the kid’s hand and pour it down the smug fuck’s throat while his coddled little brat of a son watched. 

It would be satisfying, but there was a more effective way to teach all three of them a lesson.

“Two black eyes, you said?”

Calmly, he transferred the tin of paint from his right hand to his left and, turning, grabbed the kid by the base of his skull. The metal shelving framework was almost exactly at head height, and with two quick, hard blows, he slammed his face down on its edge, landing once across his left eye socket and then the bridge of his nose. The kid staggered a step when he let go, dizzy, but didn’t drop the bottles of acetone, and didn’t make a sound, as his eyes watered and blood began to trickle from where the skin had split just below his brow. 

The man and his boy were ashen-faced and silent. 

“That it?” Montgomery asked, raising his brows. “We finished, here?”

Apparently, none of them had anything else to say.

He cocked his head, and the kid moved on without having to be told, skirting around the other boy, who avoided looking at him, and heading to the registers. Montgomery didn’t feel proud – not exactly, all the kid had done was keep his mouth shut and obey – but there was a tiny lick of satisfaction, somewhere beneath the frustration and anger at having to waste his time with this bullshit. The kid was a fucking nuisance at best, but he almost never expected them to fix his problems for him. If he got himself into trouble, or a fight he couldn’t win, that was on him, and he took what he deserved for it.

Transferring the paint tin back to his right hand, Montgomery offered a casual shrug. 

“You should think about teaching your kid to take a hit without running to his papa about it afterwards,” he suggested, looking at the boy, whose cheeks flared crimson. “Especially if he’s gonna spend his whole life acting like a little bitch.”

Unsurprisingly, they didn’t have anything to say to that, either. 

~

In some ways, the kid was armoured. Even he was small, and then later, when he wasn’t any more, he was conditioned to be tough, capable of hair-trigger violence and weaponised anger. Occasionally, he even lucked into making a clever decision about how to use those skills. 

And, in a way, Montgomery was gratified by it.

Nothing about life was easy or pleasant. Not for people like them. Not with their surname or their address or their skin tone or their income. Better he be prepared to weather that storm, because it would batter him his whole life. 

In other ways, the kid was horrifyingly fragile and easily broken.

Montgomery had been sitting on the couch, watching a football game, when he had heard the kid down the hall, and in his periphery, saw him hesitating at the master bedroom doorway, his hand on the doorframe and his sneakers just outside of the threshold. He had been eleven by then, almost twelve, and had understood and complied with the rule that banned him from their bedroom had stood since he had been able to walk.

“Mama?” the kid spoke softly, so that he could barely hear him beneath the voices of the announcers. “Can I talk to you about something?”

Montgomery couldn’t hear Marisol’s response, but after a moment of indecision, the kid stepped inside the room.

He had downed the last few mouthfuls from the beer in his hand, then got up.

And on the other side of that threshold, with nothing but a few halting, hesitant words, the kid had destroyed everything.

He had begged off sick from Little League at the recreation centre every Sunday afternoon for the last three weeks in a row.

On the fourth week, he told them why.

Montgomery had gone into damage control, immediately and instinctively. And he hoped that would be the end of it. Told himself that it would. _Prayed_ that it would. The kid knew how to keep his mouth shut – one of the few lessons that took, over the years. And yet, Montgomery was terrified that he wouldn’t, this time. The last thing that he needed was questions and investigations, and the last thing he wanted was all of the looks and shame and judgement that came with it. The way that Marisol had looked at him that afternoon had been enough, that same impenetrable expression that the kid had learned from her, the unreadable stillness mapping just how much she hid behind it. 

And so, they continued on like nothing had happened. 

Because it _hadn’t_. 

The kid went to school, they went to work, and at the end of the day they sat at the kitchen table and ate dinner, and they didn’t talk about it. 

In fact, the kid didn’t talk about much of anything. 

When he had been small, he could have talked underwater if he had been able to breathe, constantly compelled to share every thought and ask every question that occurred to him. _Isn’t he inquisitive?_ people would comment as he reeled off a string of unrelated questions while they stood in line at the grocery store check-out. For a short time, perhaps, it had been endearing, that engagement and interest. Layered over the top of long working days, crushing debt and the ever-expanding distance in their marriage, it became tiresome, and frustrating, and infuriating. It hadn’t taken all that long for the kid to learn when to shut his mouth, until he was able to correct his behaviour with just a look. But this was different. Even back then, it had been obvious that, although he was obedient to instruction, the questions and thoughts were still in there, churning away unanswered, simply suppressed behind a chastised glance and clenched jaw. 

After that day, when he was quiet on the outside, it seemed as though he was quiet on the inside, too. 

It should have been a comfort. 

Mostly, it just made Montgomery anxious.

When they went to church, he made the kid sit between them, where he could see him, terrified that if he let him slip from his sight, he would find his way to a confessional or a priest or just the nearest person he could find, and everything that he had been pressing down into the silence behind his unmoving expression would burst out of him. 

They managed that way for a few weeks, until one morning after mass the kid had slipped out of sight, and panic had cut through him in the moment that he realised that he couldn’t spot him anywhere nearby. Montgomery had found the kid easily enough, wiping the water from his freshly washed hands dry on his trousers as he exited the bathroom, but that had been the tipping point. He had grabbed the kid by the scruff of the neck, marched him to the car, and when they got home, laid into him with his belt until he eventually stopped crying. 

Only Marisol went to church, after that. 

And still, the suspicion refused to abate. 

What had he done to deserve this? That run-down old recreation centre had stood for years, had been running Little League and other sports and activities for decades without anything more scandalous than a bit of juvenile graffiti spray painted on the exterior walls or equipment vandalised by bored, drunken teenagers. And now _his_ kid comes to him, with _this_?

He thought of his mother, and the unexpected implosion that she had wrought on their family. 

According to his father, when he called to speak to them from the opposite side of the border every other weekend, she had eventually remarried, to that woman, first a civil ceremony, and then later, when it was legalised, a proper, certified wedding. Had gone back to study, and completed her History degree. Gained her citizenship. Taken up a residency at some university in the North West. 

Montgomery had asked his father to stop. He hadn’t wanted the Christmas cards or gifts that she persisted in sending, well into his twenties. He certainly didn’t want to know how unjustly perfect her life had turned out, in exchange for her betrayal.

He watched the kid. 

There was nothing identifiably different in his manner. He was guarded, as always, and after he started high school, made himself scarce more frequently than he ever had before. There was no sign of any interest in girls or boys, not in those first couple of years. He certainly didn’t bring anyone anywhere close to the house, didn’t bring up any names or events with any noticeable frequency, and although sports uniforms and equipment showed up in his room and the laundry basket, baseball tees and football jerseys in pale aqua and white and navy, he rarely spoke about practice or games, or anyone he knew there that he felt any connection to.

And in time, the absence of interest became suspicious in itself.

He wasn’t a kid who didn’t try. He brushed his teeth and kept his hair neat and washed his clothes. The effort wasn’t remarkable, but it was for someone.

But the kid gave up nothing, as always.

He refused to be provoked, his reactions as impassively non-existent as always. He didn’t respond to insinuations or comments or even outright accusations about who was texting his phone, about spending his time on the weekends hiking or at the skate park with the neighbour girl, or going to the cinemas with other boys from his sports teams, attending school dances without a date, or where he had been all night when he didn’t sleep in his own bed. 

_What the fuck do you do with that neighbour girl all day, anyway? Braid each other’s hair?_

_Just some of the guys? Yeah, I know what ‘some of the guys’ get up to, camping out in the woods all weekend._

_You ain’t even got a date, what the fuck are you getting dressed up for? You a faggot?_

The kid never offered any answers. 

“You think that’s what he is?” he had asked Marisol one night as he sat down at the kitchen table to open another beer. The kid had made slipped out at some point after dinner, which had ended with his still mostly-full plate swiped from the table and shattered against the cupboard doors over his refusal to cancel a camping trip with some other boys from the football team. “Some kind of faggot?”

Marisol, cleaning the cupboard doors with a damp cloth, had shaken her head, and answered without looking at him.

“I don’t know.”

Montgomery figured he found the answer, one evening when he stopped off at the local hardware store on his way home, and came outside not only to a sudden summer storm, rainwater lashing the carpark mercilessly, but the discovery of a nail piercing the rear passenger side tyre of the truck, running it most of the way flat. Swearing and soaking wet, he had thrown the armload of caulking guns and screws into the passenger seat, and dug the tyre change kit out from beneath the tools loaded in the back of the tray. His hands were unsteady – Christ, he needed another drink – but the unrelenting rain made it almost impossible to grip anything, and it was about as much as he could stomach, prising open the latches on the small metal crate that held the jack and lug wrench. 

The kid always tightened the nuts too goddamn hard, anyway. 

The Jeep rolled into the parking lot about twenty minutes after he had called, and while the kid didn’t hesitate to step out into the rain and retrieve the tools he had thrown to the cement, along with the crate, in a moment of frustration, the reason for his haste and lack of objection was obvious.

Another boy was sitting in the passenger seat, partially obscured by the rivulets of rainwater on the glass and the condensation on the inside of the window. A slightly built kid, with a mop of chestnut hair and a pale aqua blue basketball singlet. The boy noticed his attention on him and looked away quickly. 

“That your boyfriend?”

If the term bothered him, it didn’t show in his expression. The kid glanced over his shoulder from where he was crouched by the rear axle, cranking the jack. He lifted one elbow to swipe the rainwater from his eyes and shook his head, returning his attention to his task.

“We play on the football team together.”

Montgomery snorted. 

“Yeah,” he muttered bitterly, folding his arms. “I fucking bet you do.”

Suddenly and unexpectedly, as if he did so without conscious thought, or before he could decide against it, the kid stood, and underneath the buzz of the beers he had drank in the parking lot outside of the construction site before he left for the store and the bone-aching tiredness of a long and frustrating day, and all of those old and immovable layers of disenchantment and disgust and hate and anger, a spike of apprehension cut through Montgomery. He wasn’t a kid anymore, not really. A few inches shy of clearing six foot and solid from overlapping seasons of football and baseball and wrestling, honed and bolstered by years of swinging a sledgehammer and hauling the remains of dismantled buildings and structures, he was a kid in age only, and restrained from attacking by nothing other than a lifetime of being trained to submit. 

Inside the Jeep, the other boy watched them with wide blue eyes. 

The lug wrench was clasped in the kid’s right hand, but hung by his side loosely as the rain continued, unrelenting. 

“What do you want me to say?” he asked, his expression laid unusually open, confusion and desperation creasing his brow with a frown. Rainwater ran from his hair and into his eyes, but he didn’t reach to wipe it away, his gaze raw and imploring. “I hang out with girls and I’m a faggot. I hang out with guys and I’m a faggot. What do you want me to do?”

It was a question he had no answer to. 

What did he want the kid to do?

Could he take back what he had said, five years ago, those horrifying words and everything they had shattered and stolen?

Could he be someone else, someone better, the child they had wanted, the children they had dreamed of? And if he couldn’t, could he be someone else’s problem and burden to bear?

Could he wind back time, say twenty-odd years, and make his mother stay? Or bring his father back? 

Could he erase two decades of loss and failure and regret?

And if he couldn’t do those things, couldn’t even do one of them, then why fucking ask?

His lip curled in a sneer. 

“I want you to quit fucking around and get that tyre off before I fucking drown out here.”

The kid sighed, and his shoulders sank, and he let it go, returning to a crouch by the jack.

It wasn’t the last time Montgomery saw the other boy, though.

And the next time they crossed paths, it was undeniable.

The two of them, red-faced and startled, the kid’s expression full of guilt and dread in the half-second before he slammed down his defences and shoved the instinctive reaction aside, the other boy flushed and sleepy-eyed and dressed in nothing but underwear and one of the kid’s shirts. 

Montgomery had never felt rage like it. 

The kid had never denied it, and maybe that was strategic and he should have seen this coming as a result, but it felt like an unforgiveable lie, a devastating treachery, not only because of the hiding and the omission, which just proved that the kid knew that what he was doing and what he was were heinous and wrong, not even because of the disgusting sin of it and the humiliation and shame that it marched in lockstep with. It was the betrayal. That he would do this, be this, knowing how much it would hurt him. 

That evening, Montgomery drank himself into a deep, fathomless blackout that quelled the rage by eroding most of the memories that fuelled it. 

The pounding fury of his heartbeat slamming inside his chest as he chased the boy to the back fence. 

The silence boiling in the cab of the truck after he picked the kid up from the sheriff’s station, because it wasn’t enough to be a burden and a disappointment and a faggot and the worst thing that had ever happened to him; he found a few cracks and slivers of space in between all of those things to be a fucking criminal as well. 

The sharp, resounding crack of the pickaxe on the concrete driveway, and the instinctive, immediate disappointment that he had missed his shot. 

Montgomery saw the other boy, one more time. 

He had sent the kid to fetch the sledgehammer from the truck while he continued swinging the pickaxe at what remained of the tiled walls of the old hospital wing bathroom, and when he hadn’t returned after twenty minutes, went to see what was taking so fucking long. The engineers had been on site that morning, sipping their lattes from takeaway cups and wearing pristine hardhats and work boots, as if they ever got close enough to the actual demolition to create any threat to their safety, and he had seen the way that one of them – the young one, barely college age – had looked at the kid when they were unloading the truck. The kid pretended not to notice, but he was as shitty at that as he was at lying.

It was both a surprise and somehow entirely predictable that he found the kid outside with the other boy. 

From the walkway into the worksite, Montgomery had watched the two boys, standing by the tail of the truck in the gravel parking lot. His first instinct was to march over there – to snatch that sledgehammer from the kid’s hands and swing it at _both_ their heads in one looping swipe. But there was a tension in the kid’s body language – a furious, burning betrayal in his expression, more open and heated than he could recall seeing in years – and although he couldn’t hear what they said to one another, when the other boy turned away, there was a finality to it. 

He waited until the kid was tidying up the tools he had been using, preparing to leave for school, before he asked,

“That your boyfriend I saw you with, earlier?”

As usual, the kid didn’t react to the term, or even the question, simply continuing to stack the tools he had used to disconnect the decommissioned sinks away in the toolbox. After a moment, without turning, he answered. 

“Justin’s just a friend.”

It was a lie. That was obvious enough, even if Montgomery hadn’t prepared to receive it with suspicion.

But it was strange. 

Because it seemed to hurt the kid that it wasn’t true. 

~

Despite that he was a useless fucking idiot a majority of the time, by any objective measure, the kid should have been popular. High school wasn’t so different between one generation and the next. He played sports, and that alone should have set him in good stead amongst his peers. And yet, by all accounts, he didn’t have any friends.

His phone buzzed from time to time, and he spent a lot of nights and weekends away from the house, but where he went and who with, if anyone, was impossible to tell. He rarely asked permission to go anywhere, and when he did, almost never mentioned anyone who would be there. No other kids ever came by the house, or called for him on the landline.

Maybe Montgomery was getting old. Maybe kids didn’t live in each other’s houses and each other’s lives, the way they had when he was a boy.

The kid’s only friend seemed to be the neighbour girl; Chloe. 

The girl and her mother had moved into the neighbourhood when the kids were about six. Back then, the kid had been lonely, and spent most of his spare time skateboarding around the neighbourhood unsupervised and unaccompanied, once his presence in the house had become an intolerable frustration. The girl was a petite, birdlike little blonde, and despite that the kid was a skinny, grubby mongrel back then, she seemed taken with him immediately, smiling and watching with rapt attention while he taught her how to ride the old skateboard he had outgrown in the street outside the house. They climbed the big tree in the front yard and washed her stepfather’s car for pocket money and, even as they grew older, and the kid became harder to read and less inclined to share any part of his life with them, there were hints that they still spent time together. The way she would stand on the corner, waiting nonchalantly, when Montgomery drove past some mornings. The faint, sugary wisp of a girl’s perfume in the kid’s bedroom when he hadn’t left the house all night. The tiny curve of a smile at the corner of his mouth when he read a text message on his phone. 

Montgomery didn’t notice her in the Jeep, that night outside the bar, but when he squinted against the glare of the Wrangler’s headlights pulling up the driveway to park behind the truck, even as his thoughts swayed across one another on a tide of alcohol, he knew who had driven it home. 

Chloe met the kid at the driver’s door, already speaking as he swung it open.

“What happened at the corner of Ambrose? I almost ran up the back of you-” she cut off there, the smell of alcohol and vomit reaching her from inside the cab. Her nose wrinkled, and she peered around the kid into the cab, frowning at the regurgitated spray that had splattered the dashboard, windscreen and the passenger door. 

Fuck her. 

And fuck that little smartass Scottish _puta_ and that junkie bitch back at the bar, too.

“I took the turn too fast,” the kid said as he pulled the keys from the ignition. He sounded tired, and somewhere beneath the dull, endless churn of alcohol, anger and indignation sparked. What in the hell had he done in the last sixteen years that was so tiring? All he ever did was take. Money and time and attention, their youth and their love for one another, his mother’s dreams, _his_ father, and _he_ was tired?

His head swam as they circled around the front of the truck to the passenger side. 

“You should go,” the kid said, looking at the girl as he reached to open the passenger door. “You’ve got that Spanish quiz tomorrow.”

The girl shrugged casually.

“Yeah, that you’re going to help me cram for in the morning,” she responded, as if this were a foregone conclusion, and reached for Montgomery’s arm confidently, with the clear intent of assisting him from the vehicle. He bristled, but the kid moved quickly, reflexively, stilling her hand before she could touch the sleeve of his work shirt.

“You get the door,” the kid said, when Chloe’s brows drew together in a frown, and tipped his head toward the front door of the house. She set her jaw, and looked as though she might argue, but held her tongue, striding away up the slope of the front lawn toward the house. 

The kid did most of the work maintaining their balance and supporting his weight as he manoeuvred him from the passenger seat of the truck and onto the steep driveway. It was a practiced routine, one that Montgomery had never been aware enough to learn the steps for, but the kid knew them well enough for the both of them, countering each drunken sway, maintaining a tight grip on his sweat and vomit stained work shirt. He wasn’t gentle, but he didn’t let him fall, either – if he didn’t keep him on his feet, the whole dysfunctional dance just took that much longer. 

Progress halting and uneven, they eventually made it to the front door, where Chloe stood just inside threshold with the screen propped ajar with her heel. This time, the kid didn’t try to stop her from assisting their navigation of the narrow entryway, allowing her to reach down and lift his uncooperative boot over the doorjamb after the second time the steel-toe caught there. Once they were inside, she backed away, watching with a dark expression as the kid edged him backwards and, as gently as he could without tipping over on top of him, helped him lay back on the couch.

The room tilted and spun as the inside of his head pitched and sloshed uncontrollably. He was dimly aware of his legs being lifted, his boots being pried loose to thud on the threadbare carpet, his feet propped on the arm of the couch. Somewhere in the room, Chloe spoke.

“He fucking stinks.”

Montgomery tried to force his eyes open, but nothing was cooperating – his fingers wouldn’t curl into fists, his legs wouldn’t lift him from the couch, and the roar of pain inside his chest, that fathomless, lightless hollow that wouldn’t fill no matter how much he poured into it, refused to quiet. 

“He can shower in the morning once he’s slept it off,” the kid muttered. “I gotta get the truck cleaned up.”

The girl scoffed, and it seemed to echo around the room, repeating in rounds like ripples through the dim shadow behind his eyelids.

“Leave it for him,” she said, her voice full of scorn and, somewhere underneath it, something subtle and double-edged, a small thread of pleading and a tiny hint of judgement. “It’s his problem.”

The kid sighed, and sounded further away, somewhere in the direction of the hall, as he murmured a response.

“It’ll be my problem, if I don’t sort it out.”

He was dimly aware of retreating footsteps as the kid left the room, and soft breathing somewhere nearby, and something harsher and rattling wetly – his own uneven inhales, his throat burned raw by alcohol and stomach acid. The edgeless black of oblivion lingered on his periphery, and as always, he felt drawn to it, its empty, limitless comfort, no sound or feeling, no yesterday or tomorrow. Once it had frightened him, the nothingness. Now, it called to him, from the moment he woke until the moment he slept, that place of no sorrow and no regret, no guilt and no hate, no pain.

But someone was standing close to him, his senses warned him in stuttering pulses and flashes, and he forced his heavy eyelids open to stare blearily up at Chloe. She stood directly over him, close enough that he could have reached her without much effort, in normal circumstances, near enough that he could smell the fruit and musk in her perfume, and feel the hate that burned behind her blue eyes as she frowned down at him. 

“He deserves better than you.”

Yeah, well.

Didn’t they all? Deserve better than what they had ended up with?

“You should go, get some sleep,” the kid repeated the offer he had made earlier as he returned to the room, the smell of bleach from the steaming bucket he carried in his left hand strong and harsh. There was a tiny flicker of a smile in his voice. “My Spanish really isn’t that great.”

Unfocussed above him, Chloe smiled softly at the kid.

She didn’t say anything, but she let him lead her to the door, and followed him outside. Their voices faded beneath the roar of his own blood-flow in his ears, and Montgomery floated on its current, letting it carry him toward that endless ocean of black. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed when the sound of the screen door closing roused him. The room was cool from the chill night air outside, carrying the faint scent of bleach from the empty bucket the kid left by the front door. His limbs ached and his head pounded and immediately upon being drawn from it, he wished for oblivion again, every fibre of his being wailing for the numbing warmth of alcohol. 

He watched through bleary, half-shuttered eyes as the kid bent to collect the empty bottles from the night before, crowded on the coffee table. 

“This is all your fucking fault.”

The kid paused, three bottles grasped by the neck in one hand and reaching for another two. His expression, as it was most of the time these days, was unreadable and unmoving, a mask set in perfect stone. After a moment, he resumed his task, the bottles clinking together softly.

“Yeah, Dad. I know.”

The kid turned toward the screen door to take the bottles outside for recycling collection, but hesitated by the end of the couch. He was constantly tense – Montgomery couldn’t remember an occasion any time recently when the boy’s shoulders weren’t tight and defensive, his expression blank and guarded – and even in that moment of exhaustion and resignation, he remained coiled, as if he were so accustomed to being spring-loaded and prepared to weather an attack that he couldn’t remember how to be any other way. The kid turned his head, not quite enough to look at him, but enough to be heard clearly, the single word he offered sounding somehow foreign and intimately familiar, all at once. 

“Sorry.”

Without waiting for or expecting a response, he went back outside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You made it to the end!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading.
> 
> Thank you to comfortwriter28 as always for the chats and beta checking. If you don't already follow it, check out the Call AU, especially if you're a Justin fan (because Justin has been a little scarce around here lately!)
> 
> Next up we're back with Monty, who will explain a few things that have been alluded to over the course of this fic and the previous ones. And then we'll be on to Justin (finally, I miss that boy!!) to fill in his time on the streets of Oakland and the story of Jacket Kid.
> 
> I hope you're all keeping safe and well, and here's hoping that s4 lives up to all of our expectations <3


	17. Patchwork Scar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ****Warning**** \- this is probably the worst chapter of his story, or of anything I've ever written. It includes domestic violence, animal cruelty (described first hand), and sexual assault of a minor (described second hand). **Please take care if you decide to read on.**
> 
> The story of Monty's patchwork scar, his fear of dogs, and where the end of the friendship between he and Chloe began.

**Six**

Chloe sat on her bed with her pink pastel quilt drawn up around her shoulders and watched the storm.

The house was cold and smelled weird – not bad, just not familiar, like it belonged to another family – and it was better than the smell of ammonia and cockroach bombs from the motel where they had spent the night, but she missed her room. There hadn’t been enough space in the car or the truck that her mother had been able to afford to rent to bring all of her toys or her clothes, and she hadn’t even been allowed to pick which ones she wanted and which to leave behind. At first, she had cried when her mother had told her there wasn’t enough space to bring the Barbie holiday dream home that she had gotten for her birthday the year before, hoping that she might change her mind if she saw how much it meant to her, but her mother had simply wilted, sinking to perch on one of the small plastic chairs at her little plastic tea table, and sighed.

“I’m sorry, Chloe.”

After that, she didn’t cry any more.

She had dutifully packed the toys that she would take while her mother packed her clothes, leaving all of the party dresses and sparkly buckle shoes that she only wore to birthday parties and special occasions in favour of underwear and shoes and the clothes that she wore to elementary school. The pink plastic tea-set was packed in the back of the car, with a suitcase of her clothes, while they placed little coloured tags on her bed frame and the tea table. Tags were affixed to some of the furniture – one of the televisions, a table setting, a couch, but there weren’t enough to tag her bicycle, or her swing-set. While her mother spoke on the phone to other adults about rental properties and scruffy men with hairy legs wearing shorts and boots came to take the items with tags affixed to them out to a truck, Chloe had sat on the front porch with her doll and straightened its pale yellow dress. 

She hadn’t seen her father in four days. 

Her mother had turned all of the photographs in the house facedown. 

Chloe wondered if maybe he had died, but that seemed like a scary question to ask, so she stayed quiet.

As it turned out, the only thing that had passed was his love for her mother, and for her. 

The new house was small and dimly lit, with a sloped front lawn where it faced the steady rise of a steep hill. There was a large tree in the front yard – most of the houses seemed to have one, some with a rope swing attached, others shading a frayed and rusting trampoline left out too long in the weather or a rotting car body, the tyres flat and sunken or removed down to the bare axle – and in the backyard, a wooden kit-build playhouse. It looked like it had once been pink and perhaps white or cream, but had faded to shades of grey. Chloe had approached it cautiously, pulling open the door to peer inside. There were a couple of spiderwebs, but no actual bugs that she could see. 

“Isn’t it sweet?” her mother had asked, crouching at the window built into its side. “It just needs a bit of a sweep and a dust. You could put a flower box here,” she tapped the window sill, flaking old paint from the wood. “And your tea-set inside.”

Chloe decided her tea set was safer inside the house. 

Lightning flashed, strobing across the unfamiliar backyard, and Chloe pulled the pastel pony quilt tighter around her shoulders.

The house had none of the sounds she was used to – the hum of the refrigerator, the trickle of her father’s aquarium in the den, the sound of his snoring from her parent’s bedroom. It had been dark for hours, and her mother had gone to bed some time ago, leaving the house quiet and still. 

She thought about going to her mother’s room, climbing in beneath the covers next to her, but the idea of navigating the unfamiliar house in the dark made her stomach twist with dread, and the last couple of nights, when they had stopped off at motels to sleep and eat before getting back in the car, her mother had rolled away from her on the mattress they shared, trying to smother her sobs with her hands so that Chloe wouldn’t hear. 

The wind shifted direction outside, slanting the driving rain toward the house, and through the heavy patter against the windowpane, Chloe thought she saw something move. 

Wide eyed, she peered at the fence at the back corner of the yard, curiosity churning against apprehension in the back of her throat. She couldn’t quite tell what it was through the dark and the pounding rain, but it was something bigger than a cat or a bird – something as big as her – and it was in their yard. Chloe tried to follow the shadowy shape as it moved from the fence along the line of the garden bed, stumbling in the scant light and the rain-slicked, overgrown lawn, toward the playhouse. Sitting forwards, the quilt slipping from her shoulders, Chloe watched the door of the playhouse open – caught desperately as the wind snatched it and tried to batter it against the side of the structure – and then pulled closed as the shadow slipped inside. 

Chloe climbed from the bed. 

She took a moment to tuck the quilt around her doll, who lay with her head on the pillow, then crossed the room to the closet to retrieve her raincoat. She slipped the pale blue jacket over her _Little Mermaid_ nightgown, fastening the buttons down the front, and pulled the hood up over her hair as she climbed back onto the bed. The window latch was unfamiliar, the pane swung outwards instead of sliding upwards, the way that her old bedroom window had, but Chloe worked with quick and quiet fingers. The rain and wind tried to press the window closed, even as she levered it open, and stung her face and bare legs with raindrops like chilled needles as she climbed over the sill and lowered herself to the lawn underfoot. Her toes curled at the cold and damp, and instinctively, she thought she should go back inside, where it was safe and warm, but turned to press the window most of the way closed, leaving just enough gap to prise it open again.

She couldn’t hear anything but the low roar of the rain on the house and the ground and the hood of her coat as she tiptoed across the lawn, careful not to lose her footing in the wet grass. The playhouse was dark and still as she approached and, expecting to have to wrestle the door open, to fight for a glimpse of the shadow, Chloe grasped the handle and yanked hard, surprised when it flew open easily, unsecured.

The boy, wild eyed and bloody faced, was pressed back into the corner of the playhouse, crouched low with one clenched hand raised unsteadily, as if he might fight off whatever monster he had imagined on the other side of the door with nothing but his grubby little fists. 

Chloe stood at the open door of the playhouse, rain dripping from the edges of the hood of her coat and running from the cuffs of her sleeves over her hands, gooseflesh on her legs and her toes numb from cold, and watched the boy. His eyes were huge and dark and feral, like a domesticated animal left outside and uncared for too long, and blood ran from his nose over his mouth and chin, mixing with the rainwater that dripped from his hair and flecked his nose and cheeks, layered over the top of a sprinkle of freckles. He wore the same threadbare cotton t-shirt and shorts he had been wearing when he had approached her tea party beneath the tree that afternoon, his skinny knees dark with scabs and the black bruise a dark stain on his jaw. 

Recognising her, after a moment, he lowered his fist, but didn’t unclench it. 

Chloe licked the chill rainwater from her lower lip.

“You want to come inside?”

The boy didn’t move and didn’t respond, watching her warily from his defensive crouch in the corner of the playhouse. She ducked her head beneath the frame of the door, looked around at the corners and crevices, and couldn’t spot any spiders or bugs in the dark.

“Or I could come in there?” she offered, hesitantly. 

His gaze followed her uncertain glances around the interior of the old playhouse, and finally, the corner of his mouth ticked up in the barest hint of a teasing smile, almost imperceptible in the dark.

“Are there spiders inside?”

They hadn’t spoken earlier in the day, their tea party conducted with hesitant smiles and quiet enjoyment, until he had abandoned his tea cup on the lawn, throwing his skateboard to the road so roughly that she was surprised he managed to keep his balance when he leapt onto it, desperate to put distance between himself and her and the tea party and the rattling old pick-up truck that rolled past, the man behind the wheel scowling down at her through the open window. The boy spoke more gently than she had expected, although there was a sort of feral glee beneath the hint of an accent, the thread of teasing, and the slight whistle from his missing front teeth. 

Chloe shrugged her shoulders beneath her raincoat.

“Probably,” she said, and stepped back to make space for him to follow. “But you can squash them before they crawl on me.” She smiled. “Right?”

Hesitantly, his fingers uncurling from tight fists, he smiled back. 

~ 

**Eleven**

He got as far as pulling his cleats on, but couldn’t manage the laces.

Monty curled his trembling fingers into fists so tight that his knuckles flushed white while his stomach churned. Pressing his shaking fists against his eye sockets, he repeated the mantra silently _it’s OK, it’s OK, it’s OK_. Sometimes it worked, when he was standing at the top of the half pipe or the edge of the bowl, about to try a new trick that he wasn’t certain he could nail, Chloe watching with an excited and encouraging smile. Sometimes it even worked when his father seemed to lose himself, when the blows moved from punishing to mechanical, and he wasn’t sure the man could even see him anymore, or was aware enough to ever think of stopping. Sometimes the mantra was enough to calm the panic that rushed into his throat and constricted his chest.

But not today.

With unsteady legs, Monty stood from his bed, his Little League uniform shirt abandoned where it lay on the covers as he forced himself to move uncertainly to the door. Peering down the length of the hallway, he could see his father sitting on the couch, and hear the cheering and commentary of the football game he was watching on the television. He glanced between the man, slouched comfortably, a mostly empty bottle of beer propped on one knee, and the doorway to his parents’ bedroom. It would be safer to wait for his mother to pass on her way to the kitchen or the laundry, but if he was quiet, he might make it there before his father noticed. 

Stepping as lightly and quietly as he could, Monty slipped down the hallway and hesitated at the doorway to his parents’ bedroom. He was exposed there – within hearing distance of his father, easily glimpsed if he turned his head – but it had been over a decade since he had stepped foot in his parents’ room, the rule barring him from entry so ingrained that, even when home alone, he didn’t dare step inside. It wouldn’t have taken anything more than suspicion that he had broken the rules to earn the same punishment as being caught red-handed. The toes of his cleats edging against the threshold and one unsteady hand on the doorframe, he peered inside. His mother sat at the wooden vanity table by the door, her fingers working nimbly to braid her damp hair. 

“Mama,” he murmured, and she blinked at him, as if startled to find him standing there. “Can I talk to you about something?”

She appeared almost as hesitant to give him permission to enter the room as he was to accept it, but after a second’s indecision, waved for him to come to her. 

Monty stepped inside the room gratefully but uncertainly, his relief at making it over the threshold washed quickly aside but what he had to do next.

_it’s OK, it’s OK, it’s OK_

“I don’t feel well,” he said, looking down at the carpet, hoping that she might not hear the lie in his voice if she couldn’t see it reflected in his eyes. “Can I stay home from baseball today?”

His mother peered at him, and it was an odd and unfamiliar sensation. Most of the time, she was a practical woman, focussing on her work and her duties around the house and her faith with full attention, never prone to a curious glance or a lingering look. Taking responsibility for managing the household, from cooking and cleaning to finances, she wasn’t the type of person that anyone would have described as sentimental. Even her vanity, a simple wood-carved piece picked up at an estate auction, was almost entirely bare, dutifully dusted and polished, its surface holding only a comb, a tri-fold picture frame displaying family wedding portraits from decades past, and her grandmother’s simple, painted jewellery box. When he had been very small, and refused to sleep, she would lay him on the bed beside her and twirl the colourful, traditional earrings and charms between her fingers above him, trying to make him smile. 

He hadn’t seen the box opened in almost a decade. 

“Did something happen?” she asked. “At Little League?”

It was a practical question, and plainly asked. He couldn’t remember the last time she had called him by his name, or anything at all. 

And yet there was something there – worry? Concern? He couldn’t be certain – that flooded his eyes with involuntary tears.

Did something happen?

He didn’t know. Didn’t even know how to begin to tell her, or even if he should. Maybe if he didn’t, it would go away, eventually. The trembling in his hands, which quaked to the tips of his fingers where they rested on the surface of the vanity by the jewellery box. The tightness in his chest, like he was being crushed, and couldn’t breathe, and couldn’t fight or even touch what attacked him. The creeping dread of falling asleep, and even though most of the time, he dreamed of the black thing, and that was nothing new, waking up drenched in sweat, or crying, and the phantom sensation of a firm hand pressed between his shoulder blades was.

He had to try.

“I was waiting after practice for Chloe to finish gymnastics, so we could catch the bus.” Monty blinked, hard, and tried to clear his throat, but it felt thick and raw and uncooperative, crushing the words down to barely a whisper. “And Coach Nathan said he needed me to help him.” Pulling the words up and out of him felt like dragging a rusted anchor from the bottom of the ocean. “With something.” His jaw clenched, instinctively, and he had to focus to release it, to whisper. “In the locker room.” 

“The fuck would he need your help with in the locker room?”

Monty flinched at the rough voice behind him in the doorway, and barely crushed down the urge to bolt from the room, to duck under the hands that he was sure were poised and prepared to grab him and throw him out anyway. But when he turned, cautiously, toward where his father was standing, underneath the suspicion and accusation that creased his forehead with a frown, there was something there that he hadn’t ever seen before, so unfamiliar that he couldn’t name it, right away. 

“Nothing,” he murmured, because he knew that the question was exactly what should have occurred to him that day. When he turned the afternoon over in his mind, holding it at arms’ length, unable to let it go but afraid to bring it too close, he knew. He had been an idiot; too eager to please, too desperate for praise, too stupid and confused to understand until it was too late. Monty shook his head. “He didn’t want help with anything. But he-“

The words choked him, sharp and painful. 

He closed his eyes, hoping to trap the tears there, but succeeded only in dislodging them from where they clung to his eyelashes. 

“He pushed me down, over the basin.”

The heavy, insistent press of a large hand between his shoulder blades. 

“And pulled my pants down.”

The button had caught and the thread securing it snapped under the strain of a harsh tug, the sound of the tiny plastic disc somehow as loud as the thundering, panicked heartbeat pounding in his ears and the frightened, ragged rattle of his breath echoing in the bowl of the sink. 

“And I think-“

He didn’t think. He hadn’t even been able to think, by that point. But the sharp, breath-catching pain had been undeniable, and as much as he wanted to reject what it meant, was desperate to bury it beneath uncertainty and hesitation, he didn’t _think_ ; he knew. 

“He put something inside me.”

It wasn’t what he had expected – the feeling that came with putting it into words. Relief was what he had hoped for, had been terrified of aiming for and failing, and it wasn’t that, exactly – but it was something close. Something like release, perhaps. 

He had been too afraid to practice what he might say, frightened by the idea of having to inspect the memory closely enough to select the right words, and they weren’t precise or detailed, but they were outside of him now. The pain and the tension and the nausea and the phantom ache between his shoulders were all still there, their weight still devastatingly heavy, but the hardest part – the tearing, visceral part – was knowledge that no longer rested on him alone. If he could put words to that, maybe he could find a way to explain the hurt; to describe feeling ruined, without even knowing what was broken. 

When he opened his eyes to swipe the tears from his burning cheeks, his father was white faced and very still, except for his hands, which shook where they hung by his sides. 

“What do you mean?” His father demanded, and he sounded angry and horrified and ashamed, all of the things Monty had felt and been terrified of infecting anyone else with if he told. The little flicker of hope that had sparked inside his chest wavered. “What was it?” His father insisted and, when he shook his head helplessly, “You mean his dick?”

Something surged up into his throat, a sob or vomit or both, and he fought to choke it down, snuffing the little flame with the effort. 

This was wrong. He had been wrong. He should have listened. He shouldn’t have said anything. 

“I don’t know,” he whispered back, defeated.

Like the locker room had been in the moments afterward, which seemed to stretch for forever, the room was heavy with silence, the air so thick that it felt as if it hurt to breathe. And he didn’t have any words left – not any that made sense, or were worthwhile, or could take back what he had already said – but he couldn’t bear not to try. 

“I don’t know what to do,” he implored. “I feel sick. And sad. All the time.” He looked at his mother. “Should I tell the counsellor, at school?” Her expression didn’t shift at all at the admission or the suggestion, her eyes full and dark but impenetrable, and he stumbled on helplessly. “Or go to confession?”

Before she could speak, if she had even intended to, his father reached down and snatched him by the shoulders, tugging the boy around to face him.

“Listen to me,” his father commanded, his voice tight and desperate. “Nothing happened to you that hasn’t happened to a hundred guys. Understand?” His grip tightened on his upper arms, urgently. “So you don’t ever say anything like this again, OK?” 

Monty had never heard his father’s voice like that before. He was angry – he almost always was – but something lurked behind that familiar rough edge, and it frightened him, because it sounded like fear. 

“OK,” Monty nodded quickly, desperately, every fibre of his being shrieking at the close contact. 

His father’s dark eyes burned with intensity as he shoved the boy back, sending him stumbling a step in his unlaced cleats. Head down, Monty swiped the back of his hand across his nose, pressing down any other words that tried to well up in his throat as his father pinned him with a stare.

“ _Nothing happened._ ” He insisted, and then jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Now get the hell out of here.”

~

**Twelve**

_Nothing happened._

Nothing happened, and his mother avoided eye contact, avoided speaking to him, avoided being in the same room with him, if she could manage it. 

Nothing happened, and his father watched him all the more closely, anxiously and obsessively, and everything he did was wrong. 

Nothing happened, but he didn’t have to go to Little League any more, and that was a relief, seeing his uniform in the garbage can by the curb because his father refused to return it to the recreation centre, but he wasn’t allowed to go to church, either, or much of anywhere else. 

No one said anything, but Monty got the impression he was grounded, however unofficially. Normally, that would have felt like a strange sort of punishment – because his parents had never cared enough to ground him for anything, and his father would rather him stay away from the house than be bound within its walls, most of the time – but it didn’t really matter, because Chloe was avoiding him, anyway. She was still there, only a few dozen feet away on the other side of the fence, but there was a hesitation in her smile, a cautiousness in her texts, a distance in the way that she was around him, even when they were close, every inch that wouldn’t have existed before was telling, every hand extended to touch him but drawn back before it made contact stung. 

Coach Nathan had been right. It was his fault, and if he told anyone, they would hate him. 

Monty hadn’t expected the memories to go away, not straight away, but he had hoped the feelings might – the heavy weight in the pit of his stomach, the raw and tender sensation like a bruise beneath his skin, the anxious shadow that crept behind every action and thought. Trying not to focus on them only brought them into sharper relief, made them feel bigger and closer, as if the harder he tried to push them down, the more they grew, and leaked through, and infected everything. They were there when he sat at his desk at school, and when he walked home, when he sat at the kitchen table staring at his dinner plate, he couldn’t even seem to skate fast enough to escape it. The closest he got was tumbling from the board after misjudging the distance to clear the bricked edge of a garden bed. He had sat up following an ungainly roll down the slope of the footpath and bumping over the edge of the gutter into the road, and as he had looked down at the dirty grazes torn from his elbows to wrists, for a moment, all he had felt was the stinging heat of the physical pain. 

But it didn’t last.

And after weeks and weeks of lying awake at night, of the black thing waiting for him when he did manage to slip far enough into sleep to dream, of trying to pull the good things across to cover over the bad, until they were worn threadbare and see-through; he stopped differentiating the two, and pressed all of it down. Wound back the dials on joy and satisfaction, muted horror and pain, disconnected disappointment and fear and rage, until everything was crushed down so hard that it dulled the ceaseless roar of despair in the back of his head to a wailing echo in the silence. He packed the memories away with it, dropping them down into the fathomless abyss where the black thing lived, forgetting the tug and rush of large, calloused hands on his uniform, the suffocating tightness in his chest, the sting of tears behind his eyes and squeezing them closed so that he couldn’t see the terror that flushed the colour from beneath his freckles in the mirror, or the locker room door cracking open behind Coach Nathan’s shoulder. 

Until the only immovable stains left were the press of the man’s hand between his shoulder blades, and the gnawing, aching pain.

After that, nothing was easier, but that was OK, because it didn’t matter. 

Not his failing math grade, or the beer bottle his father threw at him for walking in front of the television, or the detention he got for breaking another boy’s nose in a brawl over the outcome of a baseball game in PE, or the way that Chloe watched him quietly as they walked home from school in silence, keeping to opposite sides of the sidewalk so that their hands and elbows didn’t brush together, the way they might have before, or even the weeks that had passed since either of them had made the climb over the back fence. 

Chloe looked awkward and hesitant, standing a foot or two behind her stepfather, when he approached them on the driveway late one afternoon. Monty stood by the side of his father’s truck, handing him tools every few minutes while he repaired the brake light he had smashed, reversing into a post box outside of the pub when leaving a few weeks before. Chloe gripped and twisted her hands anxiously, chewing the inside of her lip, as her stepfather strode up the driveway toward the truck. Big Monty and Radic weren’t friends – they didn’t do each other favours or invite one another around for cook-outs – but they crossed paths peripherally in the workplace, both involved in the same town development projects from time to time, and were the kind of neighbours who might pass a beer as they talked over the fence, or pull their trucks to a stop in the road to complain about the weekend football score or the latest council public refurbishment plans or their kids. 

“You look like you could use a drink.”

Big Monty grunted at the comment, cocking an eyebrow as he looked over his shoulder at the other man.

“You offering?”

Radic lifted his shoulder in a casual shrug.

“Depends,” he said, his tone full of that snake oil charm he used during town council meetings to promote the contractors and suppliers who offered him tickets to basketball games and dinner reservations, comped overnight stays in hotel rooms and company to share them with. He cocked an eyebrow. “You a betting man?”

Another grunt, tinged with derision, as Big Monty affixed the replacement brake light cover, plucking the screws from the breast pocket of his work shirt. 

“Gambling’s for idiots.”

Radic laughed, and although it was deep and rich and full of amusement, Chloe’s shoulders tightened behind him.

“That’s probably true,” he acknowledged with a grin. “Look, Louise took Amelia to horse camp for the weekend, so if you’re not interested,” he nodded over his shoulder at Chloe, “You mind keeping an eye on Chloe?”

Big Monty paused, fishing in his pocket for another screw, and turned a sneer over his shoulder. 

“I look like a fucking babysitter to you?”

“Nope,” Radic chuckled, then threw his hands up in surrender. “C’mon. I’ve got a couple of Casa Turrent Double Robusto’s in the truck, and I’ll buy the first round.” He waved a hand at Monty, who watched the exchange quietly, screwdrivers and pliers in his hands and his expression impassive. “Bring the kid,” he suggested. “Either it toughens him up, or at the least, he can keep an eye on Chloe so Louise isn’t all over my ass tomorrow for bringing her.”

Monty looked down at the tools in his hands as his father’s gaze swept across him. Dread was as suffocated and smothered as anything else he might have felt in the circumstances, and his expression remained unshifting, his thoughts cowed and quiet behind it. Folding her arms protectively in front of her, Chloe cast a glance at him past her stepfather’s shoulder, her expression drawn with worry. Big Monty plucked the last two screws from his shirt pocket and pinned one between his teeth, speaking around it as he slotted the other into place.

“Double Robusto’s?”

Radic smirked, with just a little smug triumph, and nodded.

“Nineteen-oh-one’s.”

Radic’s truck was a new model, on novated lease through the town council, but the upholstery already held the scent of cigarette smoke, aftershave, hot sauce from whatever lunch he must have eaten earlier that day, and the hint of a perfume heavier and sharper than Chloe or her mother ever wore. Monty sat behind the driver’s seat, and stared out the window at the dark, unfamiliar streets that passed by. He had no idea where they were, or where they were going, but it seemed unimportant. He could feel the insistence of Chloe’s gaze on him in the shadowy cab of the truck, the urgent, anxious heat of it through the thick smoke of the cigar that his father and Radic passed between them, searing him like a brand, and even that felt far away, as if he could smell and hear the hiss of the burn, but was numb to the scorch of it as her concerned blue eyes traced the loop of shadow beneath his jaw.

“Did your dad do that?”

Where before there might have been a sting of apprehension at the whispered question, or a bite of guilt, or even sometimes a little, unexpected spark of defiant pride, there was nothing. 

There had been nothing, when he went to the bathroom the morning after, and saw the bruise in the mirror, angry and purple-black. 

Nothing at the kitchen table at breakfast, while he spooned cereal mechanically from his bowl, and his mother’s eyes tightened when she glanced at him from where she sipped coffee by the sink, and his father browsed the morning newspaper, and no one said anything. 

Without looking at her, he shook his head. 

Radic parked the truck behind a bar in a quiet industrial estate lit only by the security and nightshift lighting of distant factories and warehouses. The parking lot was busy, generously filled with cars and motorbikes, a few loadless semi-trailers parked in the scrubland to one side of the property. Men and a few women stood outside to smoke, talking loudly and laughing raucously, cursing freely as they swilled from bottles of beer and spirits. The cinderblock walls of the squat, unremarkable building did little to dull the roar of rough chatter and twangy rock music from inside, the sound cresting like a wave as patrons stumbled out through the back door to light a cigarette or take a leak up against the back wall.

Chloe’s expression was tight with worry, her fingernails biting into her palms as Monty unbuckled his seat belt and climbed from the truck. The air outside was cold and smelled of beer and vomit and urine. He was dimly aware of Chloe close to his right, closer than she had come to him in months, and it felt jarring and familiar, in the fraction of a second that it registered before slipping down into the dark and the silence where everything else lived. Monty followed Radic and his father around the parked cars toward the front of the building, his eyes down on the uneven gravel of the parking lot. He didn’t see the dog until it lunged at them from behind a beat-up pick-up truck, straining and barking and seething with agitation. Chloe’s hand snatched at the back of his shirt, and she stood so close that he could feel the tremble of terror in her breath while, beside them, Radic laughed, a sharp chuckle to puncture the sudden swell of instinctual, adrenaline fuelled fear. 

A large man with a heavy beard and hands the size of bricks grunted with effort to heave the lunging dog back by the chain attached to its collar.

“Save it, you stupid mutt!” he commanded, while the dog continued to snarl and bark unabated, its jaws huge and powerful as they snapped shut on nothing. 

Radic cocked an eyebrow at Big Monty as he turned to pass him the cigar, the corner of his mouth sliding upwards with a smirk.

“You sure you’re not up for a bet?” 

The basement of the bar was hot and airless and smelled like sweat and beer. And blood. Monty was intimately familiar with it, the smell like copper, the taste like static, the heat and the bright vibrancy of it, but normally, it was his. When he was smaller, it had been unsettling but fascinating, the odd realisation that something that was supposed to be inside his body was outside of it, and the frantic pain of how it had gotten there. That it wasn’t his was frightening and unfamiliar, and a trickle of apprehension seeped from the deep, dark place where he had pushed everything down, prickling along his spine. 

They had sat at a table in the bar for half an hour, Chloe glancing around uncertainly and Monty staring at his hands in his lap, the distant sound of barking barely audible beneath the rowdy banter and the sharp, uneven tones of the rock music playing in the crowded space, before climbing down the steep wooden staircase to the basement. Chloe’s fingers had brushed his on the railing, and although he could feel the quiver of fear there, she didn’t close them around his. 

His jaw had clenched at the press of larger bodies around them in the tight confines of too many people packed into a small space, and the casual, accidental brush of hands and elbows at his back and shoulders as Radic wound a path for them to the edge of the makeshift pit, constructed with old pallets and sheet metal, the bare concrete stained with muddy splatters and paw prints from nights past. Someone jostled past, elbows akimbo as they held a couple of bottles of beer overhead to move through the crowd, and although Radic’s steadying grasp on his shoulder lingered for less than a full second, it felt like long enough to suffocate in, and Monty swallowed hard against the rush of nausea. 

The dogs were huge and furious, straining so hard against their handlers that their nails scored the concrete beneath them, and it should have been terrifying – it _was_ terrifying - but it wasn’t terror that slipped free of the fortifications he had built around everything he couldn’t bear to feel or acknowledge. It was an unsettling familiarity, a base, undeniable kinship, as the dogs lunged and snapped their jaws and finally, were released to slam into one another like berserker warriors, full of violence and rage and desperation and fear. 

Under the fluorescent lights fixed to the low ceiling of the basement, fighting to remain standing against the churning tide of the crowd jostling around them, Monty’s pulse thundered in his ears loud enough to almost entirely drown out the roar of the men and women around them, but was sliced through by the desperate, keening wail of the animal in front of them, as the dog from the parking lot latched on to its throat with bloodied, frothing jaws, and shredded everything it touched.

He could hear, very close to him, the shaking breath of suppressed tears, but couldn’t turn his eyes from the dog as it realised it could not win, and the price it would pay for not being as large or as strong, as well trained or as vicious.

Monty felt the gentle warmth of Chloe’s hand slip into his, and when he looked at her, he realised that the trembling pattern of trapped sobs wasn’t her – it was him. 

Behind them, as the dogs’ handlers climbed into the pit and used metal bars and catch poles to try to coax the bloodied victor from its unmoving opponent, Radic nudged Big Monty with his elbow, and leaned to speak against the other man’s ear.

“Looks like Little Monty’s having a hard time.”

Monty let go of Chloe’s hand automatically as he was wrenched around by his shoulder, his father’s other hand catching him by the front of his shirt. All of the rage that he had expected that day, standing by his mother’s dresser, all of that hate that he had feared, all of the shame and disgust that he had pressed down to sate the black thing in exchange for silence inside his own head, were reflected back at him as his father took in the tears that tracked his cheeks, and scowled. 

“I’ll give you something to fucking cry about.”

Even before the inertia of the backward momentum registered, Monty’s hands attempted to close on his father’s wrist, where he clenched the fabric of his shirt in his fist, or the edge of the pit wall, rust-dulled and rough beneath his fingers. Panic rocketed across every nerve ending, stronger than anything he had felt in months, so raw and instinctual that it punched through the dam he had invested so much time and care into building around it. In the moment that he toppled backwards, overbalancing further than his grip could compensate for, he thought he felt Chloe, the sting of her fingernails on his forearm as she tried to catch him before he fell.

Then the dull thud and crunch of landing on the concrete on the other side of the pit wall.

The shocked twist in the shouts of the crowd. 

The smell of blood and animal and something unfamiliar, like hot breath and stomach acid and entrails. 

And the beartrap of the dog’s jaws as they snapped closed on his leg. 

~ 

**After**

Chloe sat crossed legged at the end of her bed and watched the yard through her bedroom window. 

The light of dawn was just beginning to glow from behind the roofs of houses beyond the fence line. It had been hours – since Radic had grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her into the bathroom to shove her hands beneath the cold water blasting from the tap and scrub the blood caked around her nails and in the lines of her knuckles and palms. Hours since he had driven, half-drunk and half-terrified of the man sitting in the passenger seat and white with shock, away from the nearest hospital they had been able to find. Since Chloe had sat in the back seat, blood seeping into her jeans and the upholstery, her trembling fingers slicked red and useless to hold together the shredded flesh and muscle beneath her hands. Since Monty had slipped in and out of awareness, his face colourless underneath his freckles. Hours since the frantic, tilt-a-whirl rush of shouting and panic and screams that seemed to tear right from the bottom of her gut with a terror and desperation that seared so hot it felt like it would destroy her. 

After, she sat on her bed, and turned to face the window, and waited. The blood stains on her jeans were dried into the fibres of the fabric far beyond cleaning, and her hands were chilled and raw to the point of aching as she twisted them together in her lap. Her phone lay on the mattress by her knee, the screen dark and silent. Radic had gone to bed almost immediately after making certain her hands were clean, taking a half-empty bottle of whiskey with him and shutting the door firmly after telling her to throw out her clothes before her mother got home the next morning. She knew that she should shower and try to get some sleep, that what she was doing, staring at the back fence, was nonsensical and desperate and useless, and doing nothing to quiet the aftershocks of fear that quaked through her. 

But she couldn’t help it.

Raising her knees to wrap her arms around them, Chloe thought of the rain spattering against the glass pane, and the slick cold of the wet grass underfoot, and Monty lingering by her window as she crossed the room to hang her dripping raincoat from the door handle. He had been wary and distrusting and quiet, watching her as she turned to regard him, lifting his shoulder in a casual, non-committal shrug when she had asked, outright and unabashedly, if his father had caused the injury that trailed blood from his nose over his mouth and chin. 

He wasn’t that boy any more, not in a lot of ways – but somewhere, underneath the armour and the violence and the constant simmering heat of rage, that boy was all he was. The boy who had scrunched the bridge of his nose when she returned from the bathroom with a wad of tissues and pressed it beneath his nostrils to stem the bleeding. The boy who had shagged his wet hair halfway dry with the towel she brought him, but refused to place it over her quilt so that they could sit together, instead laying it out on the floor beside her bed, where he sat in his rain-soaked clothes, holding the bloodied tissues to his nose, and listened to her describe her old house, her old school, her old friends, and her old life. The boy who had curled up there, on the towel on the floor, the balled-up tissues clutched in one hand, and fallen asleep. 

He had been gone by morning and, over the years, other things had gone too – the hybrid half accent from his parents that he had shed to avoid teasing when they started elementary school, the scrawny build with knees and elbows too big for his wiry frame, the hopeful innocence of not knowing better than to wish for more – but he was still that boy who had shown up outside of the house the next morning on his skateboard, grinning toothlessly and offering her the second board he carried under his arm, a smaller model that he had outgrown. 

Chloe’s nails bit into her skin as her hands clenched at the sight of the shadow that appeared over the edge of the fence. It teetered there, unsteady, and then more or less tumbled to the other side, landing in an uncoordinated and half-caught sprawl. Even as he unsteadily gained his feet, she sat forward, reaching for the window latch. But as she fumbled the mechanism with uncooperative fingers, on the other side of the glass, the shadow turned and stumbled toward the old playhouse. Almost skinning her fingers, scrubbed raw and numb, Chloe forced the latch open and swung the window open as, on the other side of the yard, the playhouse door levered closed. 

The lawn was cold and damp with early morning dew beneath her bare feet and this time, she didn’t yank the door of the playhouse open, anticipating it to be barricaded from the other side. Ducking her head beneath the doorway, in the shadows of the small space, she found him with his back to her, his knees drawn tight to his chest and his face buried in his arms, pressed into the opposite corner. He had changed his clothes – she supposed they might have cut off his jeans at the hospital – and beneath the hem of his cropped sweatpants, his leg was wrapped almost from knee to ankle in thick bandages, although the wound seemed to have torn already, perhaps from the tumble over the fence, blood spotting the white fabric. 

“Monty-“

“Go away,” he said into his knees, the first words she could remember him speaking to her in weeks, spoken raggedly as if torn from some dark and sharp-edged place, deep inside of him. “ _Please_ , Chloe. Leave me alone.”

It was exactly what he had said to her, that sunny afternoon at the recreation centre, when everything had been broken.

She had waited for him, outside of the locker rooms, sitting on a bench and twisting her hands between her knees, her gymnastics bag beside her. Normally, he waited for her lesson to finish, fifteen minutes after Little League let out, so that they could catch the bus home together. Today was different. And nothing would ever be the same. 

Chloe had flinched when the door swung open, her stomach clenching with apprehension that didn’t fully ease when she saw that it was him. He didn’t look at her, and she had snatched her belongings and followed him from the locker rooms as he strode away toward the exit, swiping roughly at his face with the back of his hand, his shoulders tense and shaking beneath his white Little League uniform.

“Are you OK?” she had called, quickening her pace to keep up, her gymnastics bag slipping from her shoulder as she hurried to catch him.

“Leave me alone.”

He hadn’t looked back at her, attempting to use his longer stride to outpace her, to avoid her in a way he had never done before. And although she _knew_ he wasn’t OK, nothing could ever be OK now, she was terrified and desperate for it not to be so. 

“Monty-“

She had reached for his elbow, barely managed to snag the shirt sleeve of his baseball jersey, when he had turned with a defensive snarl and thrown his hand out, shoving her. Surprised, Chloe had tripped over her own feet, sprawling backwards. For a moment, he had stood over her, and layered over the top of the fear and pain and rage that never really went away after that day, was a terror and shame as she pressed her hand to her chest, where his rough touch had been seconds before. His eyes bright and sharp and his eyelashes damp, he had repeated, clearly and quietly.

“ _Leave me alone_.”

When she approached him at the bus shelter, after a few minutes of settling her frayed nerves, he didn’t look at her or say anything, but he didn’t push her away when she sat beside him, either. They rode the bus home, on the same seat they always chose, and it wasn’t exactly like things had been before, but it was the last, closest thing, after everything was broken, and before they had no other option but to acknowledge it. 

In the pre-dawn shadows, Chloe crouched in the doorway of the playhouse, the concrete slab that served as its footing cold and rough where her jeans were torn at the knees.

“No,” she said.

Shoving aside the hesitation that had stilled her hands and drawn her back time and time again over the past months, she crawled inside. He was more than twice the size he had been, that first stormy night when she had found him in the playhouse, and despite that he drew himself down as tightly and defensively as he could in the corner of the old structure, the small space was scarcely enough to contain both of them. Carefully, Chloe manoeuvred to his left, blocking the creeping chill from the window as she reached for him. Hands steady, she aimed her touch carefully, laying her fingers on his upper arm and the opposite flank, firm and reassuring, even when he flinched, the uneven breaths behind the armour of his folded arms shaking. She didn’t say anything, just waited like that, and counted four uneven exhales before he made a sound into his knees, like something had cracked inside of him, and all of the tension beneath her hands melted from him as he began to sob. 

Relief was a tiny flicker beneath the searing ache in her chest when Monty allowed her to guide them, to slip in tightly beside him and turn him far enough from the corner to tuck his head beneath her chin. Wrapping one arm around his shaking shoulders and laying her other hand on the black bruise that curved beneath his jaw, Chloe closed her eyes and held him tightly against her. 

She couldn’t fix anything – least of all what had broken between them – but she wouldn’t leave him alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I owe anyone who made it this far an apology! 
> 
> This is truly the most hideous thing I've ever written, and I hope that it's at least a little bit of a consolation that a) there will be no more Big Monty for a while now and b) this is probably the lowest point in terms of violence. None of this fic is joyful or light, but I think this is the darkest point.
> 
> Thank you very, very much to comfortwriter28 for slogging through this to beta check for me - I feel cruel inflicting it on you, truly!
> 
> And thank you sono for sharing your Monty&Chloe Dizzy art with me!! I am hesitant to share here after such a horrid chapter - maybe ahead of the next chapter, if you don't mind me gushing about your amazing work to literally anyone who will listen!!
> 
> Next up is Justin, his time in Oakland after leaving the motel (way back in ch3! I feel like it's been forever since our golden boy last made an appearance!), and how he came to be known as Jacket Kid.
> 
> I hope that anyone who has watched s4 since it dropped is doing OK and will continue to enjoy the fandom. It was a tough one for me, not gonna lie. 
> 
> Thank you, as always, for reading and commenting.


	18. Jacket Kid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Justin's time in Oakland.
> 
> [ Mr Rattlebone - Matt Maeson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvrDAMx8ri0) is referenced in this chapter, if you're interested in listening :)
> 
> ****Warning****
> 
> **This chapter contains references to underage prostitution, rape, sexual assault of a minor, drug use, and violence. Please take care reading.**

_I am the way and the life in the best-looking truth_  
Mr Rattlebone – Matt Maeson

~

**Now**

Justin drew on every shred of resolve and energy and determination he had left, and focussed it into his expression. 

“Don’t even give me that shit, kid,” the dealer rolled his eyes, reaching to turn the key and restart the ignition, the exhaust belching steam and fumes into the chilled morning air. “I can’t pay my rent or feed my baby with puppy dog eyes.”

Justin gripped the edge of the driver’s side window frame desperately with thin, dirty fingers. He knew that it had been a gamble, texting to agree a time and a place to meet when he hadn’t managed to scrape together the cash yet, but he was desperate – teeth chattering, sick to his stomach, wracked with cold sweats desperate – and worse than that, he was alone. 

“C’mon, dude,” he pleaded, and hated how pathetic he sounded, even to his own ears. “I’m good for it, I swear.” It was a fucking junkie lie, one he’d told to so many dealers that most of them refused to answer his calls or texts anymore. “I just need a hit so I can, like, work, and then-“

The dealer held up a tattooed hand, cutting him off. 

“Look, man. Do what you gotta do,” he raised a shoulder in a careless shrug inside his padded winter jacket. “Panhandle, steal an old lady’s handbag, suck a dick. I honestly couldn’t give a shit.” He pointed a warning finger at Justin through the open window. “But don’t fucking text me again until you got money.”

Without waiting for Justin to step clear, he put the old coupe in to reverse and backed out of the parking space behind the Chinese grocery store. Justin barely bit down on the urge to call after him, to throw something at the car as it left the parking lot, to hurl himself at it, because what was the worst that could happen? If he ended up underneath the tyres, what exactly would be so bad about that? 

Instead, he just threw his hands up in despairing defeat and, watching the car turn out into the street, let them fall uselessly to his sides. 

He never thought he would miss Dallas. 

And he didn’t – not in the way that he missed Jessica, or his mother, or even fucking _Bryce_ \- but he still missed Dallas. He missed his spaced-out grin and the patronising quirk of his eyebrow when Justin showed up at his motel room door for the third time in one afternoon, the pills he had already downed not enough to bring on sleep, or even just the quiet that he craved. 

Missing Dallas was easier than missing anyone else. 

It was a whole lot fucking easier than missing Jaime. 

That hurt was too raw and close, like a fresh wound that he was desperate to protect, but kept bumping into the sharp corners and harsh edges around him the harder he tried, some unconscious part of him driven to refresh the pain, determined not to let him forget that night, and yet another thing he had failed to do.

That stupid fucking idiot.

“ _You’re_ the stupid fucking idiot,” Justin muttered to himself and, with no other options, slung the strap of his dirty, scuffed duffel onto his shoulder. It was almost not even worth carrying around anymore. He had sold everything he had of value. That was why he was in this mess - this ongoing, ceaseless mess - because every moment of need felt urgent and unsurpassable, so desperate that his focus on sating it left no room for regard for where that desperation would leave him later that day, or the next day, or the next week. The things he did need to carry, he could manage in his pockets. 

But it was the last thing he had left, the once carefully cared for vibrant aqua blue scuffed and stained beyond recognition, the logo worn and tattered, the face of the roaring tiger scrappy and smeared with dirt. 

The chill of the morning leached through the cracks and holes in the soles of his sneakers as Justin headed out into the street. It was early – barely-light-early, the air still cold and heavy from the night before– and could be hit or miss for panhandling, but he didn’t have any other options, so he headed for the corner by the alley that ran alongside the Fo Guang Temple. Some of the business owners around the area thought them a nuisance, would call the cops on them or chase them away, shouting about drugs and disease, but the man who ran the temple would let him sit outside, and sometimes brought him out a steaming cardboard cup of black coffee or a thin, spicy soup that he could never remember the name of. The worshippers were OK, too – they were more likely to spare a couple of coins on their way in or out of the temple than the early morning commuters outside of Starbucks the next block over.

The shadows of the rising sun were still cast over the sidewalk, and it was cold, but there was a dismantled cardboard box, slid in between the brick wall and some miscellaneous broken furniture at the mouth of the alleyway, which he lay on the pavement to keep the chill from seeping up into his bones. The large-size _McDonalds_ takeaway soft drink cup that he plucked from the dumpster that had been brought out to the curb for collection seemed overly optimistic, but it would do. 

Justin tugged the sign – scrawled by hand on a torn piece of cardboard, _need a break – please help_ \- from the duffel bag, and sank down to sit on the collapsed box to wait.

Sometimes, it helped things along if he made more of an effort – if he drew his knees up to his chin to look smaller, and peered up hopefully through his eyelashes, unfurling a bright smile in thanks to anyone who paused long enough to toss him a coin or a crumpled note. 

But the street was empty, and he was just so _tired_.

~ 

**Before**

“Why meth?” he asked Jaime one afternoon while they sat on the back steps of the old disused post office building, where it was quiet enough to smoke without being bothered. He had watched the older boy flicking the flame of his lighter underneath his pipe, the tiny light reflecting on his dark eyes through the smoke that seeped from the corners of his mouth. “My mom’s boyfriend was a meth head, and I never understood why he used that shit. I mean, it didn’t seem to make him feel better, it just made him aggro. I just-“ he hesitated, glancing sidelong at the other boy, who could be fickle in his reactions, especially when he thought he was being judged for his choices, but he had to know. “-who would want to feel like that?”

Jaime tipped his head back and blew a plume of smoke into the air. He sighed, wisps of acrid vapour on his breath. 

“Don’t you ever just feel tired?”

Justin sometimes felt like he had been _born_ tired, arriving into the world with the wailing shriek of addiction already clawing at his insides, courtesy of his mother. He was too young to remember the details of the crib or the room or the apartment, but he felt imprinted with the gnaw of need that kept him from sleeping for more than a snatch of a few minutes, here and there, in those first months and years, and sometimes, he felt like he had never quite caught up on the debt of those restless nights. He had been issued more than a handful of detentions for sleeping in class through elementary and middle school, was notorious for his ability to fall asleep on car trips, in the middle of movie theatres, even sitting upright at parties with the music pounding and chatter all around him. And although he smiled along with the others when they chuckled at how quickly Monty would fall asleep after a football game, powering down almost as soon as he sat on the bus with his head tipped against the window or his chin tucked down against his collarbone, Justin thought he understood. 

It was different, in the city, on his own, but not all that much. Sleep wasn’t _sleep_ if part of the body was always in full awareness, attuned and scanning for the sound of harsh voices or violence on the other side of the bedroom door. He couldn’t sleep, not really, when part of him was always terrified that when he woke, it would be to find his mother, eyes distant and breathing shallow, her pulse almost non-existent beneath her skim-milk sallow skin. He couldn’t rest when he knew that if he slipped too far into unconsciousness, but not far enough to escape completely, the nightmares would find him in that limbo place, where he was vulnerable and trapped and too numb to fight free. Out here, even when he closed his eyes and rested his head, he had to maintain some awareness of his surroundings, listen for a footfall or a voice nearby, and be ready to protect himself and his scant belongings from others. Before, it had been a comfort to sleep with someone else nearby – and secretly, he suspected that was the reason why Monty was so quick and comfortable to take the opportunity to rest on the team bus. 

Now, out in Oakland, even the people he spent his days with, chatting and panhandling, waiting in lines for food and shelter, just sitting with quietly to pass the time some other way than alone, couldn’t always be trusted when his eyes were closed. 

The last time he could truly remember sleeping – so deeply and soundly that even the nightmares couldn’t reach him – was on the couch in Bryce’s pool house. 

He shoved the thought away. 

“Sure,” Justin said lightly, lifting his shoulder in a shrug as he picked at the cuff of his varsity jacket. “I just find somewhere to sleep, shut my eyes…”

Jaime shook his head, turning the pipe between his fingers, his dark gaze sharply focussed but on something far from this time and place. 

“Nah, _’mano_ ,” he said, quietly. “Like, fucking _tired_.” There was something about the way he said it, the threadbare strain in his tone, and Justin felt like he understood exactly what he meant. “Tired of hurting and fucking up and everything else? Tired of feeling weak and sick and scared?”

Justin couldn’t remember a time in the last few months when he _hadn’t_ felt weary, at the very least. Not just physically tired – sometimes not even truly tired at all – but worn out, like his very being had been abraded and scuffed and ground down to the bones. 

A lot of the time, homeless and living on the streets, there was nothing to do, and it was absolutely exhausting. Having nowhere to be, no one expecting anything of him, no obligations to anyone or anything, had a strange and unexpected effect. Far from being a relief from the burden of responsibility, it was acutely terrifying. With no markers in the day – no need to be in homeroom by a certain time, or at practice before Coach Morris started counting off the minutes on his stopwatch and tallying up punishment laps, or at home for dinner, not that his mother had kept a close eye on that – each one seemed to stretch endlessly, and inside those artificially enlarged spaces, everything else grew. The fear of what might happen next, because a lot of the time, nothing happened, and that was wearisome and depressing, but it took precious little – a phone call from a suspicious business owner about kids loitering on a street corner, a police cruiser rolling by, a decision to press down that gut instinct and get into the wrong car – for everything to crumble into chaos. 

In those long, featureless days and nights, the worry for what might happen to his mother, without him there, the gnawing ache of insatiable need that bled from physical to emotional until the nightmares were worse than the sweats and the shakes, the shame and the pain of what he had done, and what he had failed to do – all of it loomed, huge and ceaseless and terrifying.

“Yeah, dude,” Justin agreed, although he wished he could have answered otherwise. He accepted the lighter that the boy handed back to him, and flicked the starter a few times before the flame held. He watched it flicker weakly in the breeze, cupping his palm around it for protection. “But I just - I pop a couple of pills, and I don’t feel any of that shit, any more. It all goes away.”

Jaime watched him with pupils dilated huge and black, flooding his hazel eyes as his jaw began to work back and forth agitatedly. 

“It doesn’t though, does it?” he said, as Justin watched the flame waver and snuff itself out. “Go away?” 

In the orange light of sunset cutting along the length of the alley, Jaime sat forwards, the tension in his shoulders and his fists where they rested on his knees softened by the warm light, as a muscle flickered beneath his ear. 

“It just hides underneath and waits for you.” 

~

Justin met Jaime the third time that he attempted to pick up. 

It has been Dallas who suggested that it was time for Jusin to leave _the Palms_ , a week or two earlier. The manager was alright, he said, but the man’s ex-wife ran the bookkeeping for the motel, and when she came in to balance the ledger at the end of the week, she would see how far behind he was on his bill, and send her son-in-law by his room to sort it out. 

“Nasty motherfucker,” Dallas had drawled where he was perched on the windowsill outside of his room, smoking a skinny, fall-apart joint. He had drawn his long hair back from the side of his face and pointed to the scar that curved from his brow around his temple to his cheekbone. At first, when he had thought Dallas’s past life as a vet referred to military service, Justin had assumed the scar was some kind of badass battle injury, and afterwards, when he knew the truth, thought perhaps it was a relic from an epic prison brawl. As it turned out, neither was the case. “Keeps a crowbar in the trunk for settling debts.”

Dallas had smiled a little sorrowfully when, later that night, Justin decided to take his advice, and shoved all of his things into the duffel bag. He had no idea where he was going to go, but he wasn’t going to hang around and wait to have a crowbar wrapped around his skull. He left the makeshift bong in the wastepaper basket in the bathroom, swiped the last couple of crumpled dollar bills from the bible in the bedside drawer, and headed out with his skateboard tucked under one arm. The working girls on the other side of the complex were sad that he was leaving, but not sad enough to scrape him a bigger nugget of hash than he had paid for into a little twist of tin foil, which he tucked into his pocket before heading downstairs. Dallas had been propped in the doorway of the shared laundry room, and cocked an eyebrow at him.

“You sure you don’t wanna make one last buy, for the road?” he asked, with a slow smile. “I can cut you a good deal on this Mexican brown.”

Justin hated how tempting the offer was.

“Nah, man,” he shook his head, holding out his fist. “Thanks, though. For everything.”

Dallas just lifted his shoulder in an unaffected shrug, reaching to bump his fist with his own.

“For sure, dude. Send me a postcard or something, huh?” his cheek dimpled, although the smile didn’t permeate the haze in his eyes. “From wherever you end up.” He waved his hand casually at the rundown motel complex. “I’ll be here.”

Justin managed to hitch a ride with a truck driver at the fuelling station around the corner from the motel, who didn’t want anything in return other than someone to listen to him talk proudly about his daughter while he made the drive to Oakland. He showed Justin a picture, taped to his dashboard, of a smiling young woman with long dark hair and pretty eyes.

“She was on a dark path for a little while,” the man said, his voice a little tight with pain behind his bushy grey beard as he glanced at the rear-view mirror. “Drugs, y’know?” He grinned, and a gold tooth gleamed where one of his canines used to be. “But she got herself clean, and she’s doing so good. Nearly finished college, engaged to be married next summer. Her fiancé’s from Hawaii. They’re gonna make some beautiful grandbabies for me.”

Justin offered the truck driver the few dollars he had stuffed into his pocket when he climbed down from the cab at a fuel station on the edge of the city, but the man had waved him off with a smile. Justin had been hesitant and anxious to strike out into the city, at first, and loitered around the fuel station for as long as he could under the clerk’s suspicious surveillance, managing to slip a tourist map and a couple of randomly snatched city-themed postcards into the pocket of his varsity jacket before he swung his duffel onto his shoulder, set his skateboard on the pavement outside, and kicked off, heading toward the city. 

One of the first things that Justin learned, in the week or two after he arrived in Oakland, was that food was easy to get, if you weren’t picky – and he wasn’t.

There were soup kitchens and shelters that offered hot meals, even eggs and sometimes bacon at breakfast time. Churches and volunteer-run trucks and stalls that gave out packages of hot casserole and curries and little care packets of fruit and bottled water for the next day. If he sat outside of a McDonalds or a Subway, even a supermarket, most days, a stranger would approach him with a sandwich or a McMuffin or some toiletries they had bought for him, and he didn’t even have to ask. He always accepted with a grateful, bashful smile. 

It made him feel small inside, to accept the charity of strangers, but there was also a strange sort of comfort in the familiar exchange. In a way, it felt like being a kid again, when his mother hadn’t been too proud to ask for hand-outs, or to complain when they weren’t as generous as she would have preferred. 

Like food, drugs were easy to get as well, but they cost money. 

And getting money, that was fucking hard. 

The first time that Justin had picked up work on the street, he hadn’t been looking for it. He had been sitting in a bus shelter, his duffel sitting on his skateboard on the seat beside him, and contemplating using the last couple of coins in his pocket to buy a ticket for whatever bus arrived next. He didn’t have anywhere to go, but the grumbling momentum of the bus was like a familiar lullaby, compared to trying to sleep amongst the sounds of the street, and if the route terminated at the bus station, he was usually able to find a warm, quiet corner to pass the time until security did their first morning round. 

Before the next bus arrived, a silver sedan had pulled to a stop at the curb. Justin thought he might have seen the car pass by earlier, in the same direction, and grabbed for his belongings, worried that it was an unmarked police car and had circled the block to see if he was still loitering by the time they made it back around.

“Hey.” The man behind the wheel, when he rolled his window down, was middle aged, and judging from the bookstore logo stitched above the breast pocket of his polo shirt, definitely not a police officer. “You wanna make twenty bucks?”

He did want to make twenty bucks. 

And that first time, it was both the hardest and, once he was able to hook up with a guy at the meal stand behind the Baptist church who was selling single tabs of oxy, one of the easiest things he had ever done. 

He tried not to think about it too much, afterwards. Once the pills had worn off, and memories started to creep back in, Justin pulled the postcards that he had stolen at the fuel station from his duffel – both emblazoned with _greetings from Oakland_ messages, one with an artist’s impression of a cargo ship and a bridge, the other featuring photographs of landmarks in each letter of the city’s name – and scrawled a message to Dallas on one, addressing it to _the Palms_. 

He hesitated, tracing the edges of the second postcard for some time, before writing a short message on the back.

_Nancy,_  
_I’ll always love you._  
_-Sid_

He wrote Jessica’s address from memory. 

Justin didn’t have the money to pay for postage, so he slipped both into a sidewalk post-box and hoped for the best. 

The second time had been an unmitigated disaster. Justin had no idea what he was doing, was too terrified to approach any of the locations he had spotted other boys roughly his age, uncertain that what he thought they were doing was what they were _actually_ doing and too afraid and ashamed to ask. There were a couple of boys that he saw from time to time at the soup kitchen and outside of the McDonalds that he thought might hustle for the money they seemed to have for weed and pills, but he only knew them by sight, and approaching strangers, especially to ask to be let in on their source of income, struck him as dangerous. Justin had loitered about on a quiet street a few blocks down from where a handful of ladies were standing and chatting outside of an all-night pawn shop, wearing short dresses and skirts, smoking and laughing. They seemed so confident, or at least practised, the looks that they cast at passing cars subtle but unmistakable, and Justin wondered how long it took to find it that easy. 

He wasn’t sure he wanted to find out.

That night, he hadn’t made any money, but he had earned himself a beat down in a nearby alley, where he had run into a dead end in an attempt to evade the two men who chased him from the corner, shouting angrily about stealing their turf.

He had still been sporting a purple crescent of bruising beneath his right eye when, desperate and sick with withdrawal and achingly lonely, he had followed at a distance when a couple of boys had left the food truck outside of the Hmong church where volunteers gave out steaming disposable cups of coffee, cheese sandwiches wrapped in grease-paper, lollypops with health service phone numbers printed on the plastic sticks, and free condoms. If the boys minded, or even noticed that he loitered at the edge of the rag tag group they joined, a few blocks south, they didn’t show it, paying him no mind as they passed cigarettes underneath the street lights. 

He was anxious when the first few cars pulled up, the driver cautiously pointing or waving for whoever they wanted to join them, if one of the more confident boys didn’t move first, approaching the window to negotiate their offer directly. But as the night wore on and the air grew colder, the cup he had clung to to warm his fingers long since chilled, Justin began to worry that morning would come and he would still be standing there, penniless and freezing and humiliated. 

A new model station-wagon pulled up on the other side of the street and, after a moment, one of the older boys stepped off of the curb, flicking a cigarette into the gutter as he glanced both ways before crossing. Justin watched the boy lean down to talk to the driver, propping his arms on the windowsill, his stance casual. Biting his lip as he contemplated the idea that, if he wanted to make any money before the sun started to rise over the city, if he was going to have any chance of buying enough pills to maybe sleep for a couple of hours, or even just nod off to that warm, quiet place where the backward momentum of tumbling to the floor at Bryce’s rough shove and the tearful pleas on the other side of Jess’s bedroom door didn’t stain every conscious thought, he was going to have to shove down his fear and shame and approach the next car, the boy on the other side of the street turned toward him.

“Hey, Jacket Kid.”

Startled, Justin looked at the other boys, none of whom paid him any mind. 

He was the only one wearing a varsity jacket. 

“Yeah, _’mano_ ,” the boy called, the undercurrent of an amused drawl obvious beneath his accent. “You. With the puppy dog eyes.”

Fighting the part of him that wanted to grab his things and flee, Justin hefted his duffel over his shoulder, plucked up his skateboard, set the cold takeaway coffee cup on the sidewalk at the foot of a lamp post, and trotted across the street. The older boy, leaning against the side of the car as if he owned it, cocked an eyebrow at him as he approached. He tipped his head down toward the driver, a man in his thirties with a neat chestnut beard and a navy sweater.

“Dude’s got a motel room, few blocks from here,” the boy explained, and the rounded edges of his accent reminded Justin of Marisa, the tortillas she would make him for breakfast that Bryce turned his nose up at, loaded with eggs, black beans, and boiled plantains. “Fifty bucks and a hot shower in it for you, if you’re down?”

Justin glanced uncertainly at the man. For fifty bucks, he would expect more than a quick, impersonal hand-job in a parking lot. 

Through the window, in the back seat of the station-wagon, Justin could see a child’s booster seat. 

“Yeah,” he muttered, lifting his shoulder in a casual shrug. “OK.”

The other boy smiled, a lopsided grin that dimpled his cheek, and got into the front passenger seat, while Justin climbed into the back, shoving his bag and skateboard into the footwell below the booster chair. The radio was on, playing some sort of easy listening station, and the heater was running, which Justin was grateful for, leaning down to warm his fingers by the vent. The man looked at him in the rear-view mirror.

“What’s your name?”

Justin panicked. It was a pretty routine question, one that the volunteers and social workers at the shelters and soup kitchens liked to ask, to try to create a personal connection, and he had been running a cycle of fake ones over the last few weeks, but giving one of those to this stranger seemed like a bad idea. He fumbled the answer and finally, on a whim, said,

“Sid.”

The boy in the passenger seat grinned, apparently amused, and raised an eyebrow at the man. He curved his fingers into the shape of a love-heart beneath his chin, like a little girl at a toddler beauty pageant. 

“I guess that makes me Nancy.”

~

“You wanna get something to eat?”

Justin looked at the other boy as they crossed the parking lot of the motel complex a few hours later, his stomach churning at the smile he offered.

“Nah, man,” he said, shaking his head. “I really don’t.”

The boy rolled his eyes, shagging his fingers back through his wet mop of loose, dark curls, calm and casual, as if their mouths and hands hadn’t just been where they both knew they had been. 

“Well, we gotta split this hundred somehow, _’mano_ , unless you’re saying I rocked your world so much I can have your share?” He chuckled when Justin blanched. “C’mon. There’s a diner just up the street, here. I promise you, they make the best pancakes you’ll ever eat.” When Justin turned to cast him a suspicious glance, he drew a cross through his heart, over the breast pocket of the plaid shirt he wore underneath a thick hooded jacket. “I promise. They’re fucking amazing.”

Eating was the last thing Justin wanted to think about, but the boy was right. They couldn’t tear the hundred-dollar bill in half and go their separate ways. They were going to have to break it somewhere, and even though he felt sick and small and ashamed, and somehow still grimy and bruised despite that he had spent almost ten full minutes under the hot water in the motel shower, the bathroom door firmly and mercifully locked between him and the world, while he scrubbed the tiny disc of soap over his skin and washed his hair with the miniature bottle of shampoo, he knew that if he scored now, enough to get faded for a few hours, he would be starving, later. Better to get some food in his stomach before the temptation of the cash in his pocket got the better of him, and he placed it all in the palm of a dealer. 

“Fine,” he said, shaking his head, and the boy smirked triumphantly, nodding for him to follow.

The diner was warm and quiet, and smelled of strong coffee, buttered toast and sizzling bacon. A few men in workwear sat at the counter, reading newspapers or looking up at the early morning news program playing on the television over the grill, while a waitress with tired eyes and a thin smile topped up their mugs of coffee. Justin followed the other boy to a booth by the window, sliding into the bench seat opposite him. He let the boy order for them – two orange juices, two cappuccinos, two serves of pancakes - and tried to press down the delayed nausea of panic and shame, as those same hands that had been on him less than an hour before plucked the folded hundred-dollar bill from the pocket of his shirt and handed it to the waitress with a crooked smile.

Justin bit his lip when the boy slid a sideways glance his way, feeling his gaze on him. 

“So,” the boy asked, conversationally. “Your name really Sid?”

Justin scoffed, raising his brows to force back the anxiety that tightened in his chest at the question.

“Is yours Nancy?”

The boy cocked his head.

“Fair,” he commented, and offered his hand across the table confidently. “Jaime Reyes.”

Justin hesitated for a moment. The way he said it, it was almost as if the boy expected him to recognise the name, and he wasn’t sure if he should be worried that he didn’t. 

“Jake,” Justin answered, reeling off one of the names he had been offering to the shelter workers and volunteers who asked. Jesse, Jason, James – he tried to stick to similar names, building in a failsafe in case he stumbled over his answer, almost gave his own accidentally. He reached, with some reluctance, to take the other boy’s hand, as he gave the same surname he always did. “Atkins.”

It wasn’t that Justin thought anyone was looking for him – why would they? Jess hated him, he had betrayed Bryce, and none of the other guys would turn their back on their king for him, not considering what it would cost them to do it, or the temptation of the availability of his position at Bryce’s side in his absence. His mother had stopped texting him after the first week or so, when it had become clear that, far less than being concerned for his welfare, her attempts to reach out were crafted to lure him home, and no doubt dictated to her by Seth, the spelling and word choice all wrong. He didn’t expect Seth to come looking for him, or for his money. He was mean and cruel, but he was also lazy and opportunistic. He would wait and trust that Justin would return to his reach, eventually. And in the meantime, he would simply continue to leach everything he could from his mother. 

“Well, Jake Atkins,” Jaime drawled, with a hint of sarcasm, as if continuing the thought in his head, _if that is your real name_ , as he reached to pluck a knife and fork from the container at the end of the table when the waitress returned with a tray loaded with drinks, squeezable bottles of syrup, and two huge stacks of thick, fluffy pancakes. “I hope you’re hungry.”

~

**Now**

“Justin?”

Broken from the boggy mire of his own thoughts, Justin looked up, squinting into the sun shining on his face. 

He saw the cherry red Mustang pulled up to the curb outside of the Fu Guang Temple, and Clay Jensen peering at him from the passenger seat, and bolted.

~

**Before**

For years, Justin had told himself that he didn’t need anyone – he could take care of himself – but he had always known, that wasn’t true.

It was a lie that he told himself, an attempt at self-administered comfort, when he felt frightened and unsupported and alone. It was an excuse for his mother not to care as much as he wished that she would, for his father to have never cared at all. It was an explanation for how fickle Bryce could be with his emotions and his loyalty, a reason to try to banish the persistent thoughts of Jess from his mind. But it was a lie. Justin could deal with hunger and neglect and disadvantage and violence. The thing that really frightened him was being alone. It was the reason why he forgave Bryce every barb so carefully crafted for cruelty that it couldn’t have been mistaken for anything but intentional. The reason why he turned his head more often than he should have, walked away when he should have intervened, held his silence when he should have spoken up. It was the reason he had slept so soundly on the floor of Monty’s bedroom that night months and months ago, half-drunk and probably half-concussed, lying within touching distance of a boy who, for the most part, treated him with open dislike. 

Alone, he had no value. If no one needed him, and no one cared, he could disappear, and no one would notice. 

It was terrifying. 

Jaime, on the other hand, seemed to Justin the definition of independence. 

Already eighteen, the other boy seemed full of confidence and casual charm. He wore his mop of dark curls like a crown, his hazel eyes always bright and full of amusement, like he knew some kind of joke that no one else was in on, although when Jaime smiled at him, sometimes Justin felt like he knew the punchline, too. He seemed to know people everywhere – kids who hung out in parks and under overpasses, social workers who rolled their eyes ruefully when he asked for another free condom, stall holders at the fruit and vegetable market in Chinatown who would sell him bags of apples for half the price, volunteers at the churches and food trucks who would nod at Justin and ask about his new friend.

“That’s Jakey,” Jaime would tell them, and turn a smile over his shoulder at him that, for a second, would make everything feel warm and safe.

When Jaime was around, Justin felt like someone saw him, and when most of his days were spent walking streets where the people around him actively averted their eyes or turned their heads, tried not to make eye contact so that they wouldn’t have to acknowledge his threadbare clothes or his tattered shoes, or appear engaged enough for him to approach them for spare change, having someone look at him and _see_ him meant a lot. And it wasn’t only the way that Jaime looked at him, like he was no more or less than anyone else. It was the way that other people looked at him when he was with Jaime, the way that they smiled.

It was familiar, and comforting, and he tried, hard, not to think of Bryce. 

But Jaime wasn’t always around. 

He was as fickle as the changing autumn weather around them. He would be around for days or weeks, waiting under the streetlights for Justin to come back when he left in a stranger’s car, or coming back to collect him afterwards when he did the same. He showed Justin all of his recommended haunts – a tent city in an abandoned warehouse where the mix of people was eclectic and belongings were considered communal if you didn’t hold damn tight to them, an impromptu skate park in a disused part of the business district, where he borrowed Justin’s board sometimes and rode it a hell of a lot better than Justin had ever learned to. A lot of the time, they didn’t bother with shelters – because of their ages, Jaime was barred from most of the establishments that Justin qualified for, and vice versa. And anyway, there was an old warehouse by the railway tracks on the edge of the city that was quiet and, if they climbed right to the top level, tiptoeing and clambering up burned out staircases that the old drunks and hobos on the lower levels couldn’t navigate, they could sleep on the old insulation batons up there, undisturbed. 

And if anyone did manage to find their way up there, Jaime showed him where the loose floorboard was, near to the window that overlooked the train tracks, and the handgun that was secreted beneath it. Noticing Justin’s clear hesitation, Jaime had just smiled.

“It’s unloaded,” he reassured him, lifting his shoulder in a shrug as he replaced the floorboard, and added. “But dude, if you’re gonna keep working, you should think about carrying it sometimes, maybe?” Jaime straightened, and ruffled Justin’s hair playfully. “You got a little puppy dog face that people think they can take advantage of, _’mano_.”

Other times, Jaime would disappear without a word or a trace. He never answered text messages anyway, and Justin tried to save his pre-paid credit for connecting with the few dealers who were willing to sell him oxy without trying to shove heroin down his throat. He had pawned his old phone within a week of arriving in Oakland, jonesing so hard that his fingers shook almost too much to slide the sim card from the device before he handed it over to the impatient man behind the counter. He had tucked the little slip of plastic into one of the internal, zippered pockets of his duffel bag until he had realised, with a pang of frustrated desperation, that he needed a phone to coordinate buys, and had picked up a basic, second-hand, pre-paid model from another pawnshop. He put his old sim in it, from time to time, cautiously hopeful, but there were no texts from his mother, or Jessica, or Bryce. 

It was what he expected, but it still hurt.

When Jaime disappeared, that hurt, too. Sometimes, he showed up after a few days or a couple of weeks as if nothing had happened, offering a shrug and a dimpled smirk and no further explanation than that. Other times, he came back worse for wear, dark shadows hollowing his eye sockets, quiet and unresponsive to questions of where he had been, or if he was OK. 

And when he was there, he wasn’t always _Jaime_. 

Three days after they met, on the night that Jaime showed him the rail-side warehouse, Justin had crept downstairs to take a leak, and when he had made his way back up, navigating the dangerous, burned out old stairways in the dark, Jaime had been sitting on the windowsill, casually smoking from a glass pipe. Justin recognised the acrid chemical smell of meth immediately.

Sometimes, when he was high, he was full of nervous energy and stories and giddy, overlapping thoughts, talking himself in rounds in a way that reminded Justin of how excited Zach would get when he drank, usually talking animatedly right up until a second or two before he barfed. Other times, it filled him with an unrelenting, anxious paranoia that set Justin on edge. Although the questions and demands were often nonsensical, born of some imagined persecution as the chemicals set off random synapses in his head, the suspicious sideways glance, the distrusting, disappointed frown, were too familiar. When he got like that, Justin normally threw back a couple of pills and floated backwards and down to a place where it didn’t bother him – where the accusatory looks aimed at him with hazel eyes didn’t feel like the phantom of Bryce’s expression by the pool that night, when he had screamed what he had done and pulled their whole world down on top of them. 

But when he was around, and when he was himself, Jaime was like sunlight.

“What’d you play?” he asked one morning, while they stood in line outside of one of the quieter shelters, hoping for a shower and maybe some hot oats for breakfast. He lifted his chin, indicating Justin’s varsity jacket, which he dug his chilled fingers deep into the pockets of. “Baseball?”

Justin snorted at the idea before he could stop himself. Bryce had convinced him, in sophomore year, to try out for the team. He hadn’t hit a single ball.

“Nah, man. Basketball, mostly,” he lifted his shoulder in a casual shrug. “Football, last season.”

Jaime raised an interested eyebrow.

“Oh, yeah?” He broke into a teasing grin. “They let little shrimps like you play, _’mano_?” He chuckled when Justin elbowed him in the side. “I’m kidding, dude. Little guys like you are fast.” He stretched to his toes, to check the progress of the line ahead of them. “I played safety, back in school.” He slipped his hand from the pocket of his hooded jacket and flashed what looked like a peace sign. “Vikings, baby.”

Justin thought of Monty, running heedlessly at his target, as if there were no one else on the field but him and the boy he had to take down, any thought of how much bigger or stronger the other player was than him brushed aside as he put his head down and slammed into the tackle. As they shuffled forward in the line, the corner of his mouth ticked upward in a smile. 

One afternoon, Jaime stood at the window of a comic book shop, his eyes roaming over the display of DC comics on sale. His attention seemed drawn to a book featuring a blue and black character that looked to Justin like some sort of alien insect. From the pose and the colouring, he couldn’t quite tell whether the character was a hero or a villain. Rolling his skateboard nearer for a better look, he noticed a shelf of collectors’ toys in the corner of the window, and couldn’t help the smile burst across his face. 

“Oh, man,” Justin grinned, tapping the glass where a display of plastic robots was set up. “I used to have that one when I was a kid.” He raised his brows at the price tag. “Shit, don’t think mine was worth that much, though.”

Jaime crouched to look at the robot, its wings extended to unfurl assault cannons. He looked up at Justin with a smirk. 

“You know Starscream was a bad guy, right?”

Justin just lifted his shoulder in a shrug. 

He wasn’t even sure there was such a thing as a bad guy. 

It seemed, to him, that everyone was entirely capable of both.

~

“Were your parents’ junkies?” Justin asked Jaime one evening, while they sat in the windowsill of the rail-side warehouse, looking down at the old homeless men huddled around the fire they had built, constructing a small pyre of old wooden pallets and cardboard boxes in the middle of the gravel lot below. 

Jaime’s dealer didn’t carry oxy – too hot, compared to meth and heroin, which seemed ridiculous – but he did have a scruffy little baggie of Xanax that Justin had been happy to take off of his hands. They had each popped a couple, swallowing them dry, and sat in the windowsill to wait for the gentle lapping waves of calm to wash over them.

“Sure, I guess,” Jaime lifted his shoulder in a shrug. “Old-ass wine, whiskey, coke. Pretty much any prescription you could think of.” He pursed his lips, scratching at his curls. “Plenty of that shit out in Palo Alto.”

Justin blinked, surprised. 

“Palo Alto?” he repeated slowly, the Xanax beginning to flow through him like warm honey, softening the edges of each word. “Fuck, that’s where you’re from?” He thought he remembered some mention of his parents being Colombian but, gratefully, Jaime didn’t ask about where he had come from or what his family were like and, most of the time, Justin tried to do the same for him. “Dude, what happened? Why’d you leave?”

The other boy could be unpredictably protective and defensive when asked personal questions, and Justin almost flinched, expecting a harsh rebuttal, but Jaime only smiled, slowly and very slightly, looking down at the fire below. 

“The house and the pool and the jet skis and shit were cool,” he admitted casually, as if such things weren’t a million miles from the squat they were sitting in, wearing the same well-worn, dirty clothes they had been wearing for days, the Xanax currently melting across their nervous systems paid for courtesy of a travelling businessman and ten minutes in the back of his rental car in the alley behind a movie theatre. 

“Holidays in Cancun and Kingston. The cheerleaders loved that shit; the hot tub, the cars, y’know?” Jaime shook his head. “But that was all it was. Just shit. And then my mom married step-dad number three, and he was like, a hundred times richer than the last guy and, I dunno, maybe when you got everything else you want in the world, you feel like nothing should be off limits?”

Justin bit the inside of his lip, and somewhere, mired in the thick honeyed rise and swell of his thoughts, he knew that he wanted the other boy to stop, and not say anything else, but he couldn’t quite form the words.

“I was thirteen when they got married,” Jaime said, slowly and unemotionally, watching the embers from the fire float up toward them in the chill night sky. “The week after they got back from honeymooning in the Maldives, he started coming to my room at night.”

For the first time in his life, distantly but distinctly, Justin regretted being high.

Part of him didn’t, at all. Part of him was relieved at the soft cushioning that separated him from his own memories, that held him aloft where the imprinted sensations of large, rough hands on him, and the terror and confusion, and years later, the second-hand horror of speaking to Jess that morning after the party, and hearing the question in her voice that she tried to pass off as the fuzz of her hangover, and trying to smile so that she would hear it in his voice, even as his throat tightened and his eyes stung; none of that could quite reach him. 

But through that, threaded thinly, was the knowledge that this thing that the other boy had shared with him was huge and horrible, and deserved more than his cotton-coated consciousness could offer. 

“Fuck,” he drawled, and it felt a horrible underreaction that he was powerless to express any other way, his mouth dry and uncooperative. “Did your mom know?”

Jaime nodded, and somewhere in his gut, half-numb, Justin felt something twist.

“She slept in front of my bedroom door, for a while. To try to stop him, I guess?” He glanced at Justin, slow and sad, before returning his attention to the night sky. “But then, I dunno, Jakey. She just left it alone. Maybe I got big enough she thought I could fend for myself if I didn’t want it?” He was quiet for a long moment, his eyelashes barely shifting as he blinked, murmuring. “Maybe I should have.”

~

Justin wasn’t surprised to wake the following morning and find Jaime gone, but it stung, all the same. 

He hoped that the other boy might come back, sooner rather than later, but understood when he didn’t. It hurt, but he couldn’t say that he wouldn’t have done the same thing. He had been a child when Bryce had found him – they both had been, although sometimes Bryce didn’t seem like one at all – and even then, Justin had hesitated to articulate where he had come from, what he was, how he had come to be this way. Some of it was pride, and defiance, that lie that he told himself about not needing anyone else, but most of it was just pain, old scars and fresh wounds and black, decaying secrets rotting inside of him that he was terrified to let anyone see. Maybe they could help - maybe the wounds could be treated, the pain eased – but maybe they wouldn’t want to, and it felt safer not to find out for sure. 

Eventually, Bryce had worked most of it out on his own, and that had been both a blessing and a curse.

Some of it, he told Jess, or let her see for herself. She never judged him, and that hurt almost as much as it comforted. 

Some of it, he saw reflected back at him – like that day in the pool house when Monty had rolled his bruised and blood-stained eyes and called him _relentless_ \- and it made him feel sick.

He felt the same way when, two and a half weeks later, Jaime still hadn’t resurfaced. 

It was the longest he had spent without contact with the other boy since he had arrived in Oakland, and Justin felt pathetic and needy, but was powerless to deny the ache of loneliness that shadowed him as he went about his day, and waited for him when he tried to sleep at night. Over the past months, he had built up such a tolerance through frequent use that oxy barely scratched the surface any more, a fistful of pills strong enough to put down an animal twice his size scarcely dulling the edges of the pain of being alone and ashamed and afraid. He was better at panhandling than Jaime was, but he always felt more confident doing it with the other boy nearby, and although he was desperate for cash, he couldn’t quite force the words to beg from his mouth, shame choking them to silence as he sat on a corner or outside the bus station with his hand-scrawled sign. 

He went back to the quiet street where he had met Jaime that first night. The other boys paid him little mind. He wanted to ask if any of them had seen or heard from the other boy, but he bit his tongue, determined to be the first one to step up to the next car that pulled up to the curb, although it made him feel sick to contemplate. He couldn’t go another night without sleep, and he couldn’t sleep without help.

Not without Jaime.

He picked up the first car. And afterwards, he thought that the guy had probably seen his desperation from a mile away. Justin had tried to fight, in the dark and tight confines of the back seat, had lunged for his duffel in the front passenger footwell, and the unloaded handgun from the rail-side warehouse hidden in the bottom, but after the man had yanked him back and the crown of his skull had hit the window with a resounding crack that had splintered memory through his conscious thoughts – the spiderwebbed glass, stained bright red, and the smell of coolant and jasmine in the night air as Monty touched his temple and his fingers came away, slick with blood – his hands had felt heavy and his awareness contracted down to a tiny keyhole, the space so narrow that all he could feel was the scrape of fingernails as his jeans were tugged from his hips, and all he could hear was Jess’s sobbing on the other side of her bedroom door.

Three days later, when he met his dealer at the time they had agreed, in the alleyway behind a corner liquor store, he handed over a twenty-dollar bill, and took the little piece of folded tinfoil tucked from his palm. 

“You need works?” the dealer had asked, plainly, as if the question were as simple as ‘would you like fries with that?’

“Nah, man,” Justin muttered, tucking the small tinfoil square into his pocket. “I’m good.”

Back at the warehouse, while a freight train rumbled by below, shaking the crumbling concrete foundations of the old derelict building, Justin flicked the cigarette lighter that Jaime had left on the windowsill to life and watched the black tar begin to bubble and smoke. 

If he hadn’t been too terrified or ashamed to acknowledge it, he could have counted down the moments that had led to this, without even tracing back as far as Jess or Bryce, or his mother, or any further than the last two weeks. 

5\. Jaime had left, and that was his fault, because he was too fucked up to say what he should have said and do what he should have done, and it wasn’t the first time, and probably wouldn’t be the last.

4\. He had waited in line, the morning after that man and the car in the alleyway, hoping desperately for a shower, and when he had gotten to the front, had been told that the shelter was at capacity, and he could try St Pauls over on fifth, or Harrison House, although they had a long waitlist. 

3\. He had stumbled from the car in that alleyway, shaking and sick, and also empty-handed, shoved out of the passenger side door with nothing but the duffel and skateboard he had climbed in with. If he wanted to wash, and he couldn’t get into one of the shelters or halfway houses to do it, he would need to buy water. He sat all day, with the sign and an empty Subway cup, outside of the bus station, and had one dollar and fifteen cents to show for it. 

2\. Sick and sore and exhausted, he stumbled down the concrete steps to the pop-up skate park that Jaime had shown him, tapped the first kid he found on the shoulder, and asked how much he would give him for his board. The kid shrugged, disinterested, and offered five bucks. He took it, and handed over the board. 

1\. He was waiting in line at the corner store to pay for the bottled water tucked under his arm, aware of the glances that the clerk was casting around the lady that he was serving, eyeing the dirty stains on his varsity jacket and the holes in the sweater he wore underneath, when the woman asked for a packet of cigarettes from the display behind the counter. In the moment that the clerk turned away, under the woman’s arm, Justin spotted the loose twenty-dollar bill sitting on top of a stack of brick-a-brack in her handbag, and without a single conscious thought, reached in quickly and quietly, and plucked it free. As the clerk turned back, he had tucked the note calmly into his pocket, and after the lady departed, slipping her cigarettes and her credit card into her handbag, he paid for the water with the five-dollar bill from the kid at the skate park, and left.

Detonation. 

His sinuses burning from the harsh, acrid smoke, Justin collapsed onto the insulation batons and let his eyelids sink closed. 

Justin was halfway to fading completely when he suddenly became aware of the press of a warm body behind his, and realised he had no idea how long it had been there. Panic constricting his chest, he threw back a defensive elbow, but the erratic attack was knocked aside easily. 

“Chill, Jakey. It’s just me.” 

Although his physical senses still shrieked at the close contact, his skin prickling sharply, Justin felt the ache of fear dissolve from the dark place deep inside of his chest at the familiar voice. Listening to the quiet, constant pattern of Jaime’s breathing at his back, Justin let himself slip backwards into sleep, and dreams.

Pressed into the corner in the tiny space between the wall and the arm of the couch where his mother had ushered him, his hands clamped over his ears in a futile effort to dull the sound of shouting and thudding after her dealer ex-boyfriend broke the lock on the front door and forced his way inside.

Sitting at the police station, legs swinging and his feet in unlaced, tattered sneakers, transferred from the hospital, where they had wheeled his mother from the ambulance through a pair of double doors, to the back of a police cruiser, and onwards he went, to a sparsely furnished interview room with a lady with a soft voice and chunky jewellery who asked if he knew his father’s phone number, to the back of another police cruiser, and then a bed in a cold dormitory, where he lay shivering and crying until one of the older boys hissed at him to shut up. 

Looking up through the shimmering surface of the water at Bryce sitting on the edge of the swimming pool, wanting to open his mouth to scream but terrified of sucking in water, his lungs shrieking and his eyes burning and grasping desperately for the hand that the other boy finally shoved down in his direction, practically clawing his way up Bryce’s arm to fresh air and his crooked smile. _Shit_ , he laughed nervously, as Justin had clung to him, terrified of slipping back under, _you really can’t swim, huh?_

Shedding his dirty, threadbare clothes in the furthest corner of the upper level of the rail-side warehouse, careful to set his jeans aside where they – and the little square of tinfoil in the pocket – wouldn’t get wet. Tipping the bottle over his head and scrubbing his face, his hands, and looking down at the worn, pale floorboards as the water sluiced down his legs, tinged pink with blood. 

When Justin woke, groggy and tense and teeth chattering even before the cold really registered, Jaime was watching him from where he sat on the sill of the broken window overlooking the railway tracks below, rolling a cigarette. 

“That’s some kinda nightmares you got there, _’mano_.”

Rattled by the lingering cling of memory and the sudden onset of quaking need in the first moments of wakefulness, Justin wrapped his arms around himself, peering at the other boy as if he had materialised like a spirit, and might disappear in a wisp of smoke just as suddenly.

“Can we sleep somewhere else, tonight?”

Jaime licked the edge of the rolling paper and shrugged casually.

“Sure.”

~

Honouring his word, Jaime held the loose board securing the basement window of the abandoned church aloft for Justin to squat and manoeuvre through. The space was huge and cavernous and quiet, almost pitch black with the boards nailed over the windows at street level, but also insulated from the sounds of the city outside, so that it felt otherworldly in its separation from the rest of reality. Jaime picked a path for them carefully through the leftover garbage, abandoned belongings and various detritus that littered the floor, leading the way to a pile of collapsed packing boxes in one corner. It was clear they had been used before, the cardboard grubby and scuffed, but the inside of the building was sheltered and he wasn’t alone, and that was enough for Justin. 

Jaime hadn’t offered any explanation or details of his disappearance over the last few weeks, and Justin hadn’t pushed him, anxious that it might prompt the other boy to leave again. He wanted, desperately, to apologise – for what the boy had admitted to him when they had last spoken, for what he had said and what he hadn’t, for the fact that it had happened at all. He wanted, terribly, to tell him that he understood, and why, even though he had never told anyone, ever, about any of it. 

But as his teeth chattered and his hands trembled with the come-down of what he had smoked the night before, and even when he turned to the other boy, trying to steady himself enough to form the words, Jaime had hushed him, reaching to pluck the glass pipe from the breast pocket of his plaid shirt. 

“Leave it, Jakey,” he suggested, nodding his head at the makeshift cardboard mattress. “Just rest, huh?” 

Obediently, gratefully, Justin had sunk back, curling on his side, and dozed off. 

When he came to, he wasn’t sure how long he had been unaware, but there was a flashlight beaming in his eyes, and Jaime was standing, and the voices in the sliced darkness were loud and unfamiliar. Justin jerked into a sitting position, his heart thudding wildly against his rib cage when he realised that the men standing on either side of Jaime, one aiming his flashlight at the older boy and the other peering down at Justin, were dressed in police uniforms. 

“C’mon, Eddie,” the man with his flashlight beam aimed at Jaime’s face said, sounding weary. “Just shut up and move on, alright? Don’t make me put you in lockup overnight.”

Justin felt the colour flush from his face, confusion and terror warring for control, attempting to wrestle it away from the base, physical, wailing need that shot across every nerve ending, reminding him of every second that had passed since he had last had a hit. The police officer who aimed his flashlight down at him looked up at Jaime, cocking an eyebrow as he chimed in.

“You remember how shitty your stepdad got last time he had to come all the way out here to bail you out again?”

Jaime’s fists were clenched at his sides, and his shoulders were tense beneath his shirt, but he glanced down at where Justin was sitting, looking up at him with huge clearwater blue eyes, and after a moment, he relented. Bending down, he snatched his jacket from the pile of cardboard boxes with one hand, and shoved the other at Justin to help him up. Feeling chastised and guilty without anyone speaking a single word to him, Justin pulled on his varsity jacket as they followed the police officers up the stairs into the main building of the church, and out through a narrow gap at the edge of the boarded-up doors. The chill night air seeped into every tear and hole in his clothes, and Justin folded his arms across his chest as they waited on the sidewalk while the police officers replaced the board they had shifted to get inside. Beside him, Jaime was quiet and tense and furious. 

“No more breaking and entering, OK, boys?” the police officer in the passenger seat suggested through the open window of the patrol car. He cocked his head. “Or at least take a look around first, make sure some nosy neighbour ain’t watching you and bored enough to call the cops, huh?”

They watched the car pull away into the street, and although it was on the tip of his tongue to apologise – it was his fault that they had been caught, his suggestion to sleep somewhere other than the relative safety of the rail-side warehouse, Justin couldn’t bite back the question that blurted out before he could stop it.

“I thought your name was Jaime?”

Jaime - _Eddie_? – slid a look like a knife slash in his direction.

“Yeah? Well, I thought yours was Sid?” He retorted venomously, then snorted, shaking his head. “Seriously, _’mano_? Jaime Reyes?” He waited, but Justin simply blinked at him. “ _Blue Beetle_? You didn’t get the reference?”

Distantly, the memory of that day outside of the comic book store sparked in the back of Justin’s mind, the cover in the window that the other boy had been looking at, before he had been distracted by the display of Transformers robots, the black and aqua blue alien. Jaime watched the slow thaw of realisation in Justin’s expression, and it only seemed to feed his frustration as he jammed his clenched fists against his eyes agitatedly. Justin felt as if the other boy were slipping from him again, the paranoia and agitation enough to carry him away even if he was still physically present, and panicked, searching for something to say that might ground him, make him want to stay.

“Was it true?” he asked, watching the other boy look back at him with wild eyes. “Does your step-dad make you come home, if the cops pick you up?”

_Is that where you’ve been the last few weeks?_

“Fuck,” Jaime sighed, his jaw trembling with residual panic, then clenched his teeth and cursed, just shy of shouting. “ _Fuck, Jakey!_ ”

“It’s Justin,” Justin murmured, shrugging apologetically when Jaime stared at him, silent. “My name’s Justin.”

Jaime narrowed his eyes, his forehead creasing with a frown.

“Yeah? Well, fuck, you, Justin.” He snapped, turning to walk backwards and make sure that the other boy wasn’t following him as he insisted. “Leave me the fuck alone.”

~

It killed him, slowly, every second eating at him like acid, but he did it. Justin left him alone.

Well, for two days, he did. 

He tried to focus on other things – he sat outside of the corner McDonalds until a lady in a skirt-suit stopped on her way out and offered him the McMuffin and small coffee she had bought extra. He ate mechanically, the food thick and tasteless in his mouth, the space in his mind not filled with the banshee cry of unsatisfied need that sent shivers across his shoulders and twisted his stomach in knots, preoccupied with what the police officer had said the night before, about Jaime’s stepfather coming out from Palo Alto to bail him out from lock-up, and the way that the other boy’s face had flushed pale with panic and nausea when he had asked if it was true. 

He wandered the street that night, restless and aching and heavy with guilt, and thought of his mother, and Jess, and Bryce, and everything he had done wrong.

He slid the phone from his pocket, and thought about texting the dealer – if he could get in front of him, show him how much he needed it, how earnest he was in his promise to pay him back - maybe he would let him have a hit on credit.

It was a stupid idea.

Justin texted Jaime instead.

He didn’t text back. 

The next day, after spending hours outside of the bus station for a handful of coins that would just stretch to a bus ticket, if he needed somewhere warm and dry to sleep later that night, as the sun began to sink in the late afternoon, he lined up at the shelter for a shower. The volunteer at the door – a tall man with shaggy dark hair and a short beard – saw him, seemed to recognise him from turning him away two days earlier, and placed a hand on the shoulder of his varsity jacket.

“I got a spare bed for the night, kiddo,” he offered with a kind smile and a raised eyebrow. “You want it?”

It was unheard of, according to the kids that Jaime had introduced him to since he had arrived in Oakland, and the almost incoherent grumbling of the old hobos who lived in the lower levels of the rail-side warehouse, to be offered a bed without prolonged effort and a campaign of trust-building. Justin dumped his duffel on the bunk that the man pointed out to him, ignoring the frustrated looks of the kids nearby, and left to find Jaime.

It was an easy enough task. The other boy was at the makeshift skate park, sitting at the top of a ramp made of nailed together, graffitied plywood, his legs dangling over the drop and the glass pipe in his hand. He made a point of ignoring Justin as he weaved through the skaters, as if the aqua blue of his varsity jacket wasn’t visible from half a mile away. 

“Dude,” Justin called up to him, smiling in spite of the wary look at the other boy cast down at him. “I got a bed at the OTC.”

He wasn’t sure what he had expected, but Jaime simply raised a shoulder beneath his coat, turning his face away.

“Whatever, _’mano_ ,” Jaime answered dismissively, returning his gaze to the pipe, studying the faint wisp of smoke that rose from whatever ember was left of what he had already smoked. “I’m too old, they won’t let me in.”

Justin shook his head hopefully. 

He couldn’t do this, alone. The only value he had was the value others gave him.

If Jaime didn’t need him or want him, then no one did. 

“Nah, man. I can get you in,” he insisted, flashing the famous Foley grin. “Promise.”

And he did.

For all of four hours. 

The scruffy haired man at the door cast them a suspicious look as Justin led Jaime inside, but between Justin’s smile and the defensive tension in Jaime’s shoulders, decided to let them be for the time being. And it was OK, at first. Jaime sat at the opposite end of the bunk Justin had been assigned, and he was quiet, but he was there, at least physically, and Justin thought he could make that work. He chattered animatedly to the kids in the bunks around them, munching on a granola bar that a girl with long, dark hair offered, keeping up the patter of conversation not only to tamp down the gnawing need in the hinge of his jaw, which snapped his teeth down harder than he intended on each bite, but to distract himself from the way that the other kids glanced anxiously at Jaime, eyeing the tight clench of his jaw and his fists, the dark, sideways looks that he aimed at two boys on a nearby bunk, nuzzled close together on the narrow mattress. 

In the time that it took to take a leak, Jaime disappeared, again.

Justin’s heart kicked frantically against his ribcage when he returned to find the bunk empty except for his duffel bag, the space around him quiet, the other kids avoiding his gaze as he looked around, panicked, for the other boy. 

“Your friend’s a fucking asshole,” the girl with the dark hair offered sourly from where she was perched atop her bunk, her tone softening when she saw the alarm in Justin’s expression as he turned to look at her. She lifted her shoulder in a shrug, explaining, “Lewis kicked him out for being a homophobic pig.” She glanced down at the two boys who had been lying together on the mattress below, now sitting side by side, talking in hushed undertones, their hands clasped tightly between them. “But you can stay, if you want.” 

Part of him did want that. 

Part of him knew that what he was doing, hefting his duffel bag from the bed he had been offered – the first actual bed with a proper mattress and a pillow and a blanket that he had had the opportunity to sleep in for the last five months – was what he always did. Trusting the wrong person, offering loyalty where it wasn’t deserved or appreciated, or sometimes even wanted. What he was doing, moving quickly through the maze of bunk beds and heading toward the exit, was giving up what he shouldn’t, like he always did and always had. 

Part of him wanted to turn back to the girl, and the two boys, and insist _you don’t know him, OK? You don’t know what’s been done to him, or why he’s like this, and fuck all of you_. But the truth was, he didn’t really know the other boy, either, and what he was doing was stupid and guilt-driven and doomed to fail, but he couldn’t help it.

The man with the shaggy hair was standing by the entrance, looking down the street, and that made spotting Jaime easy enough, the other boy’s quick, angry stride unmistakable as he stalked away from the shelter. Even as the man called to him, Justin hurried out onto the sidewalk and jogged after the other boy. 

“Jaime, wait up,” he called, and the other boy didn’t wait, or even slow down, but that was OK – he had been right, that day outside the shelter, when he said that shrimps like Justin were fast. Within a few paces, he had just about caught him up, trotting up beside the older boy. Justin glanced at his stormy expression, the agitated, drug-fuelled, back and forth grind of his jaw, and kept his mouth shut. 

They made it as far at the street corner before a scrawny, dark haired boy that Justin thought he recognised from the skate park didn’t get out of the way fast enough, his shoulder colliding with Jaime’s as the other boy refused to yield. 

“Dude, the fuck-?” was as far as the other kid got before Jaime’s fist split his lips and sent him stumbling, spitting blood all over the sidewalk. 

Justin stepped back, stunned, as Jaime went after the other boy, full of unbridled fury and fuelled by fathomless pain. As he watched his friend slam his fists into the other boy, his face, his chest, his flanks, the back of his head when he tried to tuck down defensively, he wanted to reach for him, to call out to him, to try to break him out of the rage and the ache that trapped him there. Because he knew it, how much it hurt, and how terrifying it was, and how nothing made it any better, not in any way that lasted or mattered, but they could still try.

Behind him, a siren chirped, and the blue and cherry lights mounted on the top of the police cruiser strobed across them as it pulled up to the curb, and two officers scrambled out to break up the fight. 

“Wait,” Justin pleaded, and at first, it came out like a croak, as the male officer grabbed Jaime by both arms and yanked him away from the other boy, twisting his wrists behind his back and steering him toward the cruiser, ignoring his seething and cursing as he shoved him down over the hood. Justin cleared his throat, trying again, as the other officer, a middle-aged female with her hair in a tight braid, shone her flashlight in his face. “It’s not what it looks like.”

Apparently agreeing, at least in so far as being satisfied that he was uninjured and therefore uninvolved, the officer swung her flashlight toward the dark-haired boy’s bloodied face.

“You alright?” she asked, plainly and somewhat disinterestedly. 

“Yeah, yeah,” the boy muttered, smearing the blood away from the base of his nose. “That guy’s just a fucking asshole.”

The female officer cocked an eyebrow, nodded her agreement and, without any further questions or interest in getting involved, apparently deciding after a glance at their dirty hands and faces and worn-out clothes that it wasn’t worth her time, turned to head back toward the cruiser, where her partner patted his hands over Jaime’s flanks and along the legs of his jeans, while the boy hissed and cursed and tried to kick him. 

“No, no – wait! You don’t have to do this! He won’t press charges,” Justin insisted, turning to the other boy. “Right? What do you want? You can have anything I’ve got, if you let it go.”

The boy frowned over the back of his hand pressed to his bleeding nose, vaguely dissatisfied, but after a moment, gestured at Justin generally.

“I’ll take the jacket.”

It stung for just a second, like a needle-prick, sudden and unexpected, the idea of shedding that part of his identity, his status at Liberty, the brotherhood that the jacket had one symbolised, the precious place that it afforded him at Bryce’s side, the popularity that it earned him, enough to catch the eye of a pretty, confident cheerleader like Jessica Davis.

Justin shoved the sensation down, tossing his duffel to the pavement to yank off the jacket and thrust it into the hands of the other boy before turning to the police officers. He wasn’t certain that he had expected them to accept the feeble exchange, but his heart still sank as the officer closest to him pulled Jaime to standing, his wrists secured behind his back with metal cuffs. On the hood of the police cruiser lay the glass pipe that the officer had found in the breast pocket of his plaid shirt as he patted him down. 

“Wait. Wait! You can’t do this!” Justin pleaded, raising his empty hands in front of him when the police officer on the other side of the cruiser pinned him with a warning stare. “Please, just let him go.”

The officers ignored him, one getting into the car while the other placed Jaime in the back seat, barely taking care to duck his head beneath the frame of the door. The older boy stared steadfastly forward, his jaw set furiously hard. Justin stood on the edge of the curb, his hands trembling and his pulse stuttering and the roar of need and loss and despair in his ears, countless moments layered over one another; Jess staring at him with tearful disbelief as the shifting light from the pool beside them flickered over her face, Monty glaring up at him from where he crouched against his bedroom door, barricading his furious father on the other side, his mother’s averted gaze as she bit the inside of her lip and turned away from where he stood against the wall, his hand cradling his bruised throat, following Seth into the bedroom, the biting chill of disappointment in Bryce’s blue eyes as he looked down at him where he sprawled on the floor outside of Jessica’s bedroom, and closed the door between them. 

“Jaime-“

The boy pinned Justin with a cold stare. 

“My name isn’t fucking _Jaime_ ” the other boy sneered at him, and the police officer shut the door of the cruiser between them.

As Justin stood on the curb, watching the car pull away, the dark-haired boy slid into his jacket and, wiping the blood from his nose on the cuff of one sleeve, continued on his way.

With one shaking hand, Justin fished his phone from the pocket of his jeans and clicked the screen open. 

He flicked past the familiar numbers, he old sim card slipped into the phone hopefully since Jaime had left him at the church, in case any of them tried to reach out,

Past Bryce, past Jaime, past Jess, past _Ma <3_, and thumbed the scroll to a stop on the number of his dealer. 

~

**Now**

Justin looked down at his duffel on the back seat of Tony’s Mustang. 

In the front, Clay and Tony were quiet and stared steadfastly forwards, hesitant to look at him as they pulled onto the motorway and left the city behind them. 

Protectively, Justin pulled the duffel, and the little square of tinfoil tucked into the zippered interior pocket, into his lap.

~

_I am the driver, I am the shadow, and I am the hearse_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to comfortwriter28 for the beta checking and to sono for the recommendation of Mr Rattlebone - it very much encapsulates Justin's struggle in this period of his life. 
> 
> I was hesitant too share it on the previous chapter because it covered such hideous topics, but I absolutely **adore** this art that [ sono](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonorous_egocentricity/pseuds/sonorous_egocentricity) created of Chloe & Monty, and couldn't pass up the opportunity to share it! [ Dizzy art](https://www.reddit.com/r/13ReasonsWhy/comments/h7w6hf/final_attempt_to_post_this_fanart_reddit_sucks/)
> 
> The next chapter will be back with these two, and also a lot shorter than this one (apologies for War and Peace!)
> 
> Thank you as always for reading and commenting <3


	19. the Pool House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After walking out of Bryce's testimony, Chloe is made aware of the polaroids taken of her in the clubhouse, and has a decision to make about testifying, herself.

**Now**

Chloe made it to the foyer outside of the courtroom before she realised she had no idea what she intended to do, where she planned to go, or how she would get there.

The doors behind her completely silenced the sound of Bryce’s testimony, no doubt continuing on the stand, and despite that the foyer of the courthouse was quiet and empty, the double glass doors to the stairs outside streaming morning sunlight onto the polished floors, she felt trapped, as if there wasn’t enough air in the room, or enough space; as if there was a spiralling pressure in her head that would take her to her knees if she didn’t escape. 

Bryce, although clearly a little rattled by the Gatling gun attack of the prosecution lawyer’s questions, hid it well behind calm, concise answers, just enough guilty but contrite admission about what had occurred – the drinking, the lack of protection – to be plausible, and horn-rimmed glasses that she had never seen him wear in the entire time she had known him. She thought that his parents, sitting beside her on the bench, were probably proud at how confidently and maturely he spoke under pressure.

All she could think about – as Bryce blinked innocently behind those glasses, tantamount to a costume, or at least a mask, and agreed that he did usually use protection when he had sex – was that he hadn’t, that night a week earlier, when he had invited her over to watch a movie in the pool house. All she could feel were his insistent hands on her, tugging at the button of her jeans, shoved underneath the waistband of her underwear, as if her body belonged to him, and not to her; the lectures that the varsity teams had been given about consent in the previous weeks regurgitated hastily and lopsidedly, his version both cursory and tilting her response in the direction he wanted. 

_You’re good, yeah?_

_Yeah-_

_You want to, right?_

_…right._

And then, later, after she had stood under the scalding water of the shower until her mother had knocked on the bathroom door and reminded her that she didn’t pay the water bill, she had sat on her bed in her pyjamas to check her phone, and flicked through over a dozen messages from girls on the squad and other students from study group, asking her if she had _heard these?_ , and clicked the link through to a comment on a local community chat thread discussing the Baker trial, with 14 audio files attached. 

**#Justice4Hannah**

“You OK?”

Chloe turned back toward the courtroom, where Monty pressed the door closed carefully behind him. He paused, halfway between her and the door, as if wary of either option, and it punctured her panic with a sharp sting. He had been cagey – or cagier than he normally was with her, at least – since the night in the Rover. And she understood. It had been a long time since either of them had been that vulnerable with anyone, even one another, and she hadn’t expected that he would recover from slicing himself open and letting her see what he was hiding underneath right away. But rather than settling slowly, with distance and time separating them from the raw anguish of what he had admitted that night, the wound that it left behind seemed to bruise darker and deeper, turning him protective and hesitant, defensive in a way he always was with others, but never with her. 

She didn’t know what to do, or how to fix it.

She didn’t even know how to answer the question.

_Was she OK?_

Chloe sank onto the wooden bench beneath the window and looked down at the colourful little bird embroidered on her grey knit cardigan as she tried to resist the urge to twist her unsteady hands together in her lap.

“Do you think she lied?” Chloe asked, looking up at him as he stepped closer. “Hannah, I mean? About what he did?”

“I don’t know,” he answered, uncertainly, but honestly. “I don’t think everything she said on the tapes was exactly what happened-“

“You were at the party, right?” Chloe couldn’t help pressing, even though she wasn’t sure she wanted the answer, frightened by the panic that brightened his eyes for a fraction of a second before he shoved it back, glancing around the foyer to make certain no one was near enough to overhear before returning his gaze to her. “Do you think it could have happened? The way she said?”

She could see that she was pushing him harder than he was willing to be pushed – here, with Bryce and all the other boys nearby and at risk of appearing behind them at any moment, or maybe at all, on this topic – and his expression closed down totally, until his eyes were flat and dark, like the glassy surface of a fathomless lake on a still day.

“I don’t know,” Monty insisted, his tone equally unreadable. “People do shitty things and lie about it all the fucking time.”

That was true. But he didn’t. He did shitty things, sure. In the last couple of days, he had racked up a laundry list of them – smashing every window and panel of Tony Padilla’s prized cherry red Mustang where it was parked in an alleyway with the sledgehammer from the back of his father’s truck, breaking in and vandalising Baker’s Drug Store in a desperately wild attempt to derail the trial at its source – and probably other things that she didn’t know about, that he didn’t volunteer and she didn’t ask to be told. 

But he didn’t lie about it. Not to her. 

Helpless to suppress the anxious urge, Chloe wrung her hands in her lap, looking up at the double doors that silenced the voices in the courtroom on the opposite side. The idea of returning to her seat alongside Bryce’s family made her stomach turn. 

“Could you give me a ride back to school?”

Monty hesitated. 

“Chloe-“ he said, shaking his head and shrugging helplessly when she looked up at him. “If I’m not here, when he comes out-“

“It’s fine,” she cut over what she knew he was going to say – she knew it was true – that if he disappeared before Bryce’s testimony was complete and the session was adjourned, before the other boys and the Walkers filed out of the courtroom, Bryce would put two and two together. By now, he might not have noticed that Monty had stepped out, but from the stand, he would have spotted the empty seat beside her mother where she had been. They had given up too much already, to protect what little they had left, to risk it on a moment of scant comfort, driving together quietly, while the rest of the world crumbled around them. 

She smiled tightly.

“I can get the bus.”

Monty looked as though he wanted to say something else, but the words lodged in his throat and wouldn’t budge. He had never been expressive, but he rarely hesitated to say what needed to be said, and his uncertainty frightened her. Before he could shake the words loose, Chloe stood, slipping the strap of her bag onto her shoulder.

“I’ll text you later.”

~

_where are you?_

_I need to talk to you_

Chloe clutched her phone tightly and stared at the screen, waiting for the flashing ellipses. On the other side of the door, a faucet not quite tightened off properly dripped into the bottom of the basin, the sound rhythmic and echoing off of the tiles like a metronome. Outside of the bathroom, the hallways were quiet, final period having started almost fifteen minutes ago. A tiny, irrational part of her felt guilty for ditching class. She had a Biology quiz next week, and it was not the ideal time to be missing an opportunity to cover the material, but she couldn’t even begin to fathom how she would have focussed on concepts of natural selection and evolution. 

In her bag, at her feet, pinned securely beneath her books so that they couldn’t accidentally slip free, lay two small squares of film, flimsy and almost entirely weightless. And yet, with the devastation of a wrecking ball, they had destroyed everything she thought she knew and thought she could trust. 

As the seconds ticked by like days, Chloe sank her teeth into her lower lip and sat back, her gaze straying over the blacked-out graffiti on the back of the stall door. It had been a crude and makeshift solution, far less effective than the chemical cleaner that the custodial staff had quickly applied to the thick black lettering scrawled across Bryce’s locker that same day, under strict instruction to remove all traces of it before his parents arrived for the ribbon cutting ceremony to open Walker Field. 

And still, somewhere underneath the tight clutch of pain and panic in her chest, which seemed to constrict her airways and burn in the back of her throat, there was a tiny flicker of satisfaction that no new messages had appeared. 

Anyway, the field had lasted three whole days in pristine condition before someone had burned **RAPISTS** in two-foot letters across the pitch. 

No amount of chemical cleaner or custodial elbow grease could erase that quickly or quietly. 

Although part of her wished she could.

As strong as the instinctive urge had been to scrawl out the graffiti on the back of the stall door – even as she told herself that it was her duty as captain of the cheerleading squad to protect its members, past and present, and knew that wasn’t why she was doing it, at all - she wished she could erase the letters burned into the pitch. The team was far from perfect, their culture and the way that the school – even institutions like her own squad – treated them supporting the notion that they were kings amongst their peers, but for the most part, they were just boys, no more or less limited in their views and attitudes than the boys in her study group, or in robotics club, or in jazz band, or on the yearbook team. Being athletes made their lives look easier from the outside, seemed to award them privilege that they neither earned or deserved, based on physical ability alone; a free ticket to popularity and adoration. But for some, those benefits meant little compared to the lifeline that the sport offered. For them, a place on the team was not a coveted prize in the popularity lottery, but a means to an end, no more or less advantageous than the practical ability and scientific intelligence to design and build robots, or the creativity and skill to play an instrument, or capture photographs that engaged and drew people in and made for engaging college application portfolios. 

For some, the outcome of a practical joke could mean the difference between a college scholarship and no future at all. 

And yet, for one of those boys, at least, it seemed the label burned into the field was fairly earned. 

Depending on who you believed. 

It felt otherworldly, to consider that, only days ago, she had lay alongside Monty, underneath the window on his narrow single mattress, and hadn’t quite managed to suppress a flinch at Bryce’s voice on the recording.

_She was practically begging me for it. If that’s rape, every girl at this school wants to be raped._

Monty had been watching her, but when her gaze met his in the dark, he had lowered his eyes, shuttering whatever thoughts lay behind them, and Chloe had wondered if he was thinking the same things that she was. About what they had been doing, for the past weeks since the Baker trial had begun, and why. About the upcoming testimony schedule – Tony, arguably closer to Hannah than anyone else, still close with Mrs Baker, and most likely to have the context and understanding to determine the truth of what she had said, and Bryce, the only person alive who knew, with certainty, what had happened between them. 

About that muggy summer morning after the basketball game, when she had asked him about the clubhouse, and told him nothing had happened there. 

Chloe’s phone vibrated in her hands, and she looked down at the response. 

_we’re at the pool house_

Shit.

To categorize the sentiment in her relationship with Bryce at that moment as _tense_ would have been a significant understatement. It had been building in layers for weeks – maybe even significantly longer than that, maybe for as long as they had been together, if she hadn’t been reluctant and afraid to consider back that far. 

There was the trial, and his insistence that it had nothing to do with him, despite that she had been fully aware that he had been subpoenaed to testify from the outset. 

The invitation to meet his parents, and the way that his mother had looked at her when she had seen the bruise on the back of her arm, and truthfully, Chloe wasn’t certain of its origin, it could have easily been cheer practice, as she had offered with a casual smile, but they both knew, it would seem, that it could have just as easily been Bryce’s rough and insistent grasp. 

Bryce’s arm around her shoulders at the ribbon cutting ceremony, an outward token of comfort and support that felt as if it were intended to anchor her to his side and banish any thought of fleeing, as Marcus labelled him a rapist in front of their peers and his parents and the press, while Monty stood by the podium a few feet away, eyes down and expression guarded. 

The invitation to breakfast with his parents that she had accepted, unable to bring herself to decline when he had approached her by her locker, his expression earnest and hopeful and full of residual pain and shame for what had happened at the ceremony, afraid of adding to his hurt by hesitating, and then, hating herself for her cowardice, she had avoided his calls and texts all weekend. 

The tears in his eyes and the waver in his voice when he approached her where she had been sitting alone on the back quad, unable to stand the looks and whispers that followed her in the hallways and through the cafeteria, the guilty twist in her stomach as he cleared his throat and looked away toward the field and explained that he was embarrassed to think that she might hear the vulgar things that he had said on that tape, that she might find out what had been said about him, _that you might believe it_ , and suddenly she was the one who was wrong, for feeling hurt and humiliated by the things that had been said, by others and by him. 

And then on top of the guilt for her reaction, the shame that came with her own misplaced distrust and disloyalty, there was the secret wish that she tried to push aside - after Zach had nodded his acceptance of her insistence that she was fine, and that he could report back to Bryce that she believed him - when she had wondered, hopefully, if the sincerity she thought she saw in his eyes and heard in his voice was genuine, even if she couldn’t quite trust that it was. Not in the context of the text Monty had sent her, twenty minutes after she had left him and Scott with Bryce at the table on the back quad, turning away before Bryce’s expression of hurt and confusion at her sudden uncertainty about joining his family on vacation to the Amalfi coast could break her resolve. 

_he’s in damage control w. the tapes and porters testimony. be careful._

Feeling like a traitor, sitting beside his mother in the courtroom, but not really sure who exactly she was betraying, because in a way, it felt like everyone, to some degree. 

And that was before Jessica had approached her in the study lounge.

Before _this_.

Taking a steadying breath, Chloe clicked out of the text conversation with Monty, and navigated to Bryce. He had texted her, after his testimony, a simple _where r u?_ On the bus, on the way back to Liberty, she had tapped out a quick response; _sorry. biology quiz next week. can’t miss class. i’ll catch up with you later._

Her thumb had hesitated over the _x_ that had once been tacked on to the end of every message she sent him without thought. 

Now, with unsteady hands, she typed without thinking, before she could decide against it.

_all done with bio. Can I come see you? xxx_

~

It was entirely predictable and exactly what she had hoped for – by the time Chloe arrived at the pool house, the guys had already spent most of the afternoon drinking in celebration of his success on the stand, and Bryce, his nerves settled by the adulation of his boys, or at least willing to set aside his worry for a few hours while he presided over his court, had little to no interest in her, barely bothering to turn his cheek up for her to lay a kiss at his temple before returning his attention to the conversation he was in the middle of. It was simple to help herself to a can of soda from behind the bar, smiling greetings at Luke and Scott, and then slip outside to wait.

Because next came the hard part. 

The part that she didn’t want to do and was terrified to ask, especially here, but she had to know. 

Because more than what Bryce had actually done to her, and what it implied that he may have done to others, which terrified and sickened her, the part that hurt the most was that Bryce had lied to her about it. 

And that maybe, Monty had, too.

As much as she didn’t want to believe it – didn’t even want to contemplate it – objectively, she knew that it wasn’t impossible. Maybe, it wasn’t even improbable. She didn’t think that boys’ sports were the root of all evil, or even the biggest problem with the culture at Liberty. She didn’t think that the entire baseball team deserved to be labelled as rapists. But Jess had said that there were more photos, more girls, years of history in that place that they called the clubhouse. And Monty had been playing since sophomore year. He had belonged to Bryce even longer, longer than she had; so long that, sometimes, the things that he said and the way that he acted was so unlike him that she felt as though he was lost to her entirely. 

And as much as she wanted to trust that he was still the boy who taught her how to ride his old skateboard, and how to make mac and cheese, and how to speak basic, conversational Spanish so that they could whisper to one another from their desks and in the playground in elementary school without most of the other children around them eavesdropping, she had a decision to make.

Jess had asked her to testify. To give voice to the things that she hadn’t been able to, that had been too much for Hannah to bear. 

It terrified her, even though part of her wanted to do it, to prove to Bryce, to herself, that he didn’t own her the way that he thought he did – the way that he had made her feel that he did. 

But she couldn’t do it without knowing – without the opportunity to ask Monty, first. 

_Did you know about the Polaroids?_

As if drawn by her turmoil, he appeared in the doorway of the pool house, a smile lingering at the corner of his mouth at a joke one of the others had told as he glanced back around the room to make sure none of them were paying him any particular attention before he stepped outside. He crossed to the table in a few quick steps, and Chloe sat forward, queing up the question, determined to ask it before she could hesitate, but Monty spoke before she could form the words, bracing with both hands on the back of the chair opposite her to lean forward slightly, his voice low and urgent. 

“Did you tell Bryce?” he asked, and when she only blinked at him, the question unexpected and its meaning unclear, he elaborated haltingly. “What I said, the other night, in the Rover.”

She wasn’t as practiced at it as he was. She couldn’t keep the surprise and dread and guilt from her eyes, or hide the deep shudder of regret that ran through her from showing in the moment that she hesitated to answer. 

He saw it.

And his expression didn’t shift at all, but behind that stillness, inside the silence, where he wouldn’t let her see, one of the last cracked and damaged pieces, integral to holding them together, shattered. 

~

**Before**

Chloe stepped into the pool house with a smile, her head tilted to one side to towel the ends of her hair, damp and steaming from the hot tub, when Bryce turned on her.

“What is this?”

He was standing a few feet away, next to the coffee table where she had left her phone alongside her jewellery when they had decided on a whim, after a few shots of vodka that they had crept through the dark house to pilfer from his father’s liquor cabinet, to strip off their clothes and slip into the hot tub. Her peach and hot pink bralette had been soaked and practically see-through in seconds, but it hadn’t lasted that long under Bryce’s insistent hands anyway, peeled off and flicked carelessly in the direction of the poker table as his mouth, somehow hotter than the water that bubbled around them on her wet skin in the chilled night air, found the soft spot beneath her jaw. 

It had been a rough week – only days since Justin Foley had disappeared, and although she got the impression that the boys knew, or suspected, what had happened, none of them were willing to say anything about it, not in Bryce’s presence. He had been almost more sombre than he had been in the shocked and quiet days after Jeff Atkins had been killed, and in that pensive silence, Chloe had started to hear things. That something had happened between him and Jessica Davis, who was also conspicuously absent from Liberty, at her party at the beginning of the year. 

First, that she had cheated on Justin with Bryce. 

And then, other things. 

Things about Jess and Justin and Bryce that seemed outlandish and impossible, that concerned and frightened her, and kept twisting more deeply and darkly than she could bear to acknowledge, so that people started to glance at _her_ in the hallways and across the library, and graffiti began to sprout like weeds in the bathrooms, scrawled messages about Jessica Davis being a slut and a liar, so that when Chloe tried to escape to the quiet and privacy of a stall, to steady her breathing until she could prise apart the tight clench of her hands, even there, the rumours followed her. 

She couldn’t talk to Bryce about it – he would barely speak to any of them, least of all her, and she had been surprised when he had caught up with her after final period on Friday, a smile dimpling his cheek, and asked if she wanted to come over Saturday night while his parents were in New York for the weekend. 

If what people were saying was what had bothered him – or if it wasn’t, if it was Justin or Jessica or some other thing entirely – he was clearly ready to let it go, and after days of silence and treading on eggshells, it had felt like a relief. 

Now, his expression was dark and injured, his brows and the corners of his mouth drawn downwards in a frown as he brandished her phone, the screen alight with a push notification. At that distance, she couldn’t see what it said, and shook her head, hesitant to close the distance between them. 

“I-“ 

“What’s your passcode?” he cut across her, turning the phone back into his palm and waiting expectantly for her to answer. Feeling suddenly, intensely vulnerable, in nothing but her water-soaked underwear, mercifully not torn when he had tugged the garment aside earlier, she wrapped the towel tightly around herself, tucking one corner in securely beneath her arm. 

“Can I have my phone, please?” Chloe asked, forcing her voice to hold steady and calm, pressing down the anxious tremor that gripped something deep inside her chest and squeezed. 

For a moment, she thought he might throw it at her, unchecked fury flushing across his expression and brightening his eyes to a crisp, burning blue, but instead, Bryce moved around the couch toward her, and that was almost more frightening than if he had wound up his pitcher’s arm to launch the phone in her direction like a weapon. Chloe barely resisted the urge to back away as he closed the distance between them, her hands clutching the towel wrapped around her still damp body as he stepped into her personal space. He shoved the phone at her, but his grip on it was so tight that she wasn’t certain he meant her to take it.

“Why is he texting you?”

Bryce’s demanding stare never strayed from her face, studying every movement in her expression, every shift behind her eyes, and Chloe wasn’t sure it was a good idea to break eye contact to look down at the screen of her phone, not with him standing so close that she could feel the residual heat of the hot tub emanating from his skin, as if stoked by the betrayal that burned behind his angry frown. 

Chloe hadn’t ever felt like he might be capable of hurting her. Most of the time, Bryce was the perfect boyfriend, sweet and proud, kind and thoughtful. He pulled her chair out when he took her to dinner, and offered her his sweater when they walked along the boardwalk afterwards and her skin started to prickled with goosebumps in the cool breeze coming in off the waves. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders in the hallways at Liberty, and offered her rides to school, even though it was well out of his way to collect her, and made space for her to sit with him at lunch, even if it meant bumping one of his boys from the opposite end of the bench. Other times, he was not so polite, but no less devoted, his gaze and hands on her as if consumed by her to the point that he couldn’t deny himself the touch of her skin. 

Even when that beaming glow of devotion dimmed, like the last few days; in those unpredictable times when he drew into himself, and whatever place he occupied seemed dark and cold and he projected that outwards, any sentiments he did choose to share short and sharp and intended to sting, she didn’t doubt that he cared about her, or felt that he would deliberately harm her. She had watched her own mother play the same game for years, with her father, and then her stepfather. It was a marathon of endurance – all she had to do was weather whatever criticism and rejection and cruelty and silence was offered, accept the blame, acknowledge her guilt and failings, promise to do better – and in return, he would come back to her all the sweeter; her loyalty proven, his affection earned. 

This felt different.

Reaching quickly so that he wouldn’t see the tremble in her fingers, Chloe clasped her phone and was relieved when he let her take it, although it was tempered with anxious dread, because there was only one _he_ that was likely to both text her, and illicit such a jealously furious reaction. 

When she clicked the screen back to life, the passcode prompt flashed a warning that one more incorrect attempt at guessing the code would result in the device being locked. Chloe drew down the upper menu to view the text message push notification without entering her passcode, certain that, even if he didn’t snatch the device back from her the moment she unlocked it, Bryce would commit the code to memory the instant she entered it, and would know if she changed it later to protect that small, private part of herself that she didn’t want to be forced to share with him, or with most people. And even more than that, to protect all of those other hints – because she was certain he wouldn’t miss a single one – her _M+C_ Spotify playlist, the screeds of text messages that spanned back years, as long as she had had that number, the call logs, and the photos that she didn’t post to her social media accounts – him crouching to tie Amelia’s shoelace where it dangled over the edge of her skateboard; reaching back a hand automatically, without even turning or giving it much thought, to help her up a rocky incline as they hiked to the water hole; the last time he had agreed to lay on her bed beside her, giving in to her pleas that he remain just until she fell asleep, knowing full well that his eyes would slip closed before hers, his dark eyelashes fanning over the sprinkle of freckles across his cheekbones in a low golden light from her bedside lamp. 

**Monty**   
_your mom left her headlights on. again_

A tiny trickle of relief threaded through Chloe at the harmless content of the message. She hadn’t expected anything suggestive or incriminating, but Bryce was capable of extrapolating meaning from insignificance in a manner she had never seen anyone do before. It was a balancing act she wasn’t sure she could manage – convincing him that he had no reason to be concerned without making him feel as though his concern was unfounded, which was, paradoxically, likely to be as poorly received as confirming his suspicions. Aiming for the carefully modulated tone that her mother sometimes used, calm and even, with just a dash of pre-emptive contrition to hopefully douse any escalation, she looked up at him through her eyelashes. 

“We live in the same neighbourhood,” she said, carefully and levelly, watching his expression for his reaction. “Our moms know each other a little bit.”

The second part was a lie – she was almost certain that they had never spoken, and would probably scarcely recognise one another if they crossed paths in the street or at the grocery store – but the next available shade of truth, that it was their fathers who were familiar with one another, was information she wasn’t willing to admit to him. Bryce eyed her, his suspicion unrelenting.

“Why does he have your number?” he questioned, looking down at the phone in her hands, the screen dulled to black. He let the string of misgiving unspool in his head, continuing the line of questioning before she had the opportunity to answer the first query. “Why do you have him saved in your phone?”

Chloe tried not to let him see her shovelling coal into the fire of her thoughts, urging herself to think quickly, and carefully. The lie had to be plausible, and acceptable, and believable, and as simple as she could make it, so that she could explain it to Monty later, with just enough detail that he could replicate it. Best to base it in truth, as much as she could, so that neither of them could trip over on any cracks or unnecessary parts. And she had to tell it, now, as naturally as she could manage. 

“We used to catch the bus together, to the recreation centre, back in elementary school,” she said, and didn’t have to try too hard to pull forward the small, nostalgic smile that curved the corner of her mouth. She knew that Bryce wouldn’t quite understand – he struggled to conceptualise the measures that those not blessed with the wealth of his family took in order to access simple opportunities – but he usually found something sort of sadly endearing about the idea of it, and she aimed for that sentiment. “My mom wouldn’t let me ride alone, but she had to work, and he had Little League when I had gymnastics.” She raised her eyebrows earnestly and, pinning the edge of the towel secure with the hand that held her phone, reached to touch his arm gently. “We’re just neighbours, babe.”

Bryce shrugged her touch off, turning away from her. 

“If you’re just neighbours, why is this the first time I’m hearing about it?” he asked over his shoulder as he moved to the bar, reaching for the bottle of vodka. “Why didn’t he tell me?” He continued, somewhat rhetorically, as he twisted off the cap, and turned to her with a frown. “And why didn’t you? Unless you’re hiding something?”

He took a long swallow of liquor directly from the bottle, but his gaze never left her. He couldn’t have reached her without moving, at least a half dozen feet of space between them, but she felt trapped, pinned there by his accusatory stare. Panic began to seep around her desperate grasp on the quiet calm in her mind, poisoning her thoughts with frantic worry.

“I wouldn’t do that.” She insisted, and it felt wrong, but she was desperate to turn the persistent light of the interrogation away from her own face. “I thought we trusted each other?”

Bryce scoffed, as if it were an amusing notion. 

“So did I.”

Chloe watched him cross to the armchair and slouch there in nothing but a damp towel, wrapped around his waist. He didn’t look at her, but she could see his thoughts churning behind his eyes, his brow furrowed and his grip on the neck of the bottle of vodka tight. She was frightened of what dark, imagined place he was digging toward inside his own head and, even though it seemed like the wrong thing to do, she stepped closer, edging toward the back of the couch. 

“Babe-“

“You don’t know Monty as well as I do,” Bryce insisted, and Chloe had to shove back any reaction to the certainty in his voice, forcing down any indication that would flag to him just exactly how wrong he was in his assertion. “He’s jealous and he can’t fucking stand it when someone has something he can’t have.” His eyes flicked away from her, across the room, as if he were scanning some internal filing system for memories he had saved away for later analysis. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”

Chloe had seen it, too.

And with a decade of context, she knew that it wasn’t what Bryce thought it was. 

It wasn’t the envy or desire that he mistook it for, that he assumed everyone must feel for the things that he had that they did not. It was a longing, for certain, but not for her love or the romantic relationship she shared with Bryce. 

It was a yearning for what they had once had, and once been to one another. 

A knee-jerk reaction of wanting to share a funny thought or point out something that he thought she would smile at, the way that they had done when they were small. 

It was as simple as an old, shared in-joke that no one would understand but them, the memory prompted unwittingly by something happening around them, that he wished they could share, and as complex as hoping helplessly, on a difficult day, that they might have found a way to sit together, in the quiet, secret comfort of being close to the other, instead of being jostled from either side of the cafeteria bench by boys from the football or baseball teams. 

It was a silent question that couldn’t be asked aloud - _are you OK?_ \- the morning after one of them had made the climb over the back fence, or they had texted back and forth until one of them fell asleep, if he had disappeared to one of those other hiding places that she didn’t know and didn’t push him to share with her. 

It was the boy with the missing front teeth and the grazes on his knees, smiling at the little blonde girl with the doll in her lap, over a pink plastic tea cup. 

She knew it, because it was the same way she looked at him, when she felt certain Bryce wouldn’t notice. 

“Fuck,” Bryce muttered, shaking his head angrily. “First fucking Justin, and now him?” His grip flexed on the neck of the bottle of vodka. “After everything I fucking did for them.” He looked at her, indicating the room with a sweep of the bottle in his hand. “You know they treat me like a run a homeless shelter? Like every time one of them steps out of line and gets their ass beat, it’s my fucking problem?” He scoffed, bitterly. “And like a fucking idiot, I let them use me. I treated them like they were my brothers.”

Chloe felt the bitterness of his sense of betrayal spiralling darkly, out of her reach and perhaps even outside of his own. As controlled as he was, most of the time, Bryce was capable of impulsive fury, especially when he felt that he had been wronged, so unaccustomed to the concept of injustice and unfairness, at least, when it wasn’t tilted in his favour. And even more frightening than his anger when it was uncontrolled and spontaneous, was his revenge when it was considered and calculated. 

Although she wasn’t certain that she was entirely out of the woods – that his rage wouldn’t suddenly swing around in her direction again if she wasn’t very careful – she could see his focus narrowing, his internal targeting systems calibrating, and she was desperate to stop him. Gingerly, she stepped closer, moving around the arm of the couch to perch on its edge. 

“I really don’t think there’s anything to it,” Chloe soothed, reaching to touch his elbow but hesitating when he took another agitated swill from the bottle. “And even if there was, I love you, babe. I don’t want anyone else.”

She had no idea how to explain to him, without revealing more than she should or could, that more than any other part of his life, Monty devoted every shred of time and thought and energy that he could spare to the boys, and especially to Bryce. And he did it, willingly, knowing that Bryce would never do the same for him in return. 

If either of them ever forced Monty into a position where he had to choose between them, she couldn’t say, with certainty, that he would choose her. 

“It’s not about you,” Bryce snapped, coldly, and shook his head, looking away. “I gave him a better life than he ever deserved, and he lied to me.” He exhaled slowly and, far from calming him, his jaw still tight with agitation, the breath seemed to indicate only that he had settled on his next course of action. “Fuck him.”

Dread flushed through her, cold and rough. This was her fault. She should have turned her phone off. She should have changed Monty’s name in her contact list to literally anything else. She should have told Bryce the truth, from the start. She should have said ‘no’, when he insisted that she allow him to take her on just one date. She should have told those girls in freshman year that she didn’t need their camaraderie or the cheerleading squad or the popularity or any of the rest. All she needed was the one friendship that she already had – it was cracked and broken and other people thought it small and strange, but in that moment, sitting beside Bryce as he schemed, it was all she wanted.

Because of a stupid text message, letting her know that her mother had left her car parked in the driveway outside of the house with her headlights on again, so that she wouldn’t come out to a flat battery the next morning when she left for work, Bryce would take everything from Monty. 

And it wouldn’t even be hard.

Betraying Bryce meant betraying them all. The teams, the boys, his brothers, his place at Liberty, his protection in the light of Bryce’s grace. And her. 

She had to kill his suspicion, completely, and she had to do it _now_.

“I never thought he had a crush on me,” she said, the words forming automatically without any real conscious thought. “I always figured he was happy to hang out with me when we were kids because he was gay.”

Bryce blinked, as if startled, and sliding his gaze in her direction, raised an eyebrow, his cheek dimpling, very slightly, with satisfaction.

“Really?”

~

**Now**

“I didn’t-“ Chloe cut herself off, knowing that to have any chance of fixing this, of catching all of those broken pieces inside of him and cupping them safely in her hands where they might have a chance to put them back together, she had to pick her words carefully, but she felt completely unprepared, her mind empty of any other image except her own pale and unmoving body, lying on the couch beneath Bryce, and the question she had been practicing all afternoon, that would have broken her heart to ask.

_Did you know about the Polaroids?_

She had been terrified of the answer – that he would have the exact reaction she was giving now – that he would admit that by his action, or inaction, he had hurt her, and had kept it from her. It was a weapon that she couldn’t dull the edge or lessen the impact of, the damage already done, even as she let it fall from her hands and clatter at her feet.

“I didn’t know, when I said it,” she tried again, and he was looking at her, and listening, but it wasn’t making any difference. “It was weeks ago, around the time Justin ran away, and Jessica disappeared from school, and Alex…” she trailed off, the horror of the idea of what the other boy had done too visceral to put into words. “He saw a text from you on my phone and he freaked out.” Her pulse quickened involuntarily at the muscle memory of how close he had stood to her, his blue eyes burning with furious betrayal. “He thought I was cheating on him, with you, and I tried to brush it off, but he was angry, and I got scared, so I told him a lie.” She shrugged feebly. “I thought.”

Monty frowned, and it wasn’t disbelieving – he had never distrusted anything she had said to him, even in the context of this omission - but puzzled, and when he spoke, perhaps a little hurt. 

“Why didn’t you tell me that you were scared he would hurt you?”

A small, rebellious part of her wanted to protest that she didn’t need anyone else’s protection. She wasn’t a damsel in distress and she didn’t need any white knight chivalry. Another part wanted to defiantly insist that she knew what she was doing, she was in this relationship with Bryce because she wanted to be, and although she often felt like she was justifying her choice to stay to other people, really, the person she was constantly trying to convince was herself. Larger and heavier and stronger than all of those, though, was the part of her that swelled with joy at the confirmation that, somewhere behind the emotionless mask and the armour of anger and abrasiveness, the boy who had swung his skateboard into the face of a kid twice their size, just to protect her feelings, was still alive. 

But underneath that, far from feeling like the girl who had brandished her sister’s skateboard and threatened his father to keep him from attempting another swing with his pickaxe, she felt silly, and guilty, and wrong. 

“He wasn’t going to hurt me,” she explained, softly. “He was going to hurt you.”

And instead, in her fumbling attempt to protect him, to neutralise the threat as completely and immediately as she could, she had taken that barely formed plan from Bryce’s hands, and had executed it herself. 

“I’m sorry,” she said, barely above a whisper. “I should have told you.”

She simply hadn’t been able to fathom how. 

At first, it had seemed simple, a necessary lie to safeguard him, both of them, from Bryce’s suspicion and what he might do with it. Any immediate concern had been swept aside by her relief that Bryce had accepted it, and hadn’t seemed to give it much thought. Afterwards, when she had lay beneath her covers, staring up at the night sky through her bedroom window, she had begun to realise the weight of it. What she had said in desperation had solved the immediate problem, diverting Bryce’s attention away from what they had worked so hard to keep him from knowing, but as she examined it, she realised how many dangerous edges it contained. In her haste to snatch the bladed weapon that Bryce was sharpening, to protect Monty from his possessive jealousy, she had, without proper consideration, handed Bryce a blunt club to batter him with instead. 

Even if her intentions had been good, how could she tell Monty, that she had branded him with the label his father had suspected and accused him of being for years, had weaponised against him, had used as an excuse to hate and to hurt him, despite having no evidence that it was even remotely true? How could she explain to him that, in an effort to protect him from being hurt because of what they were to one another – which Bryce could never possibly accept or understand – she had poisoned what he was to Bryce, instead? 

And that was before she had known, could have even imagined, that the lie that she had offered Bryce in exchange for the safety of their secret was actually the preciously guarded truth. 

Chloe had lost count of the number of text messages she had tapped out, drafting and redrafting the words, the number of times she had scrolled to his number in her phone, or sat on the end of her bed, willing herself to open the window, climb over the back fence, and tell him the truth. 

But the longer she hesitated, the harder it had become. And somehow, with that same passing of time, as she watched Bryce and the way that he interacted with Monty, it also became easier. Despite that she had expected him to use what she had said against the other boy, Bryce gave no indication that he had any intention to do so. At first, every smile that he aimed at Monty, every casual touch, seemed weighty and deliberate. But Monty gave no indication that anything was amiss, and she realised that it was her own guilt, adding ulterior intent to Bryce’s actions where there was none. The juvenile banter of gay jokes continued between the boys as it always had, and Monty participated just as comfortably as he always did, and she allowed herself to be lulled into a passive sort of calm. 

Part of her had even begun to feel guilty for expecting Bryce to try to use what she had told him to hurt Monty. 

Now, she realised, she was right to feel guilty, but it had been for the wrong reason. The one causing hurt was her. 

Monty shook his head. 

“Don’t worry about it,” he said flatly, and she knew that he meant it – that he didn’t expect her to feel guilty for it, or think on it any further, because he would do enough of that for both of them. “I told him it wasn’t true. He thought I had a crush on you, and I told him he was right.” He said it plainly, without emotion, as if this were an ordinary sort of thing to admit to. “I thought he believed it, but now…” Monty trailed off, and Chloe wanted to ask what it was that had happened which had made him doubt Bryce’s acceptance of the lie, but he shrugged. “He would have figured it out eventually, anyway.”

That was probably true. He always did. 

That didn’t make any of it any better. 

More than anything, she wanted to reach for his hand where it rested, gripping the back of the outdoor chair tightly, and tell him _enough_. 

Enough of this. Enough of Bryce, and worrying about what might happen to Liberty, or what anyone else there might think or say. Enough of hiding so desperately that they suffocated any chance that what they had once been might be resuscitated with a sudden, glorious gasp. 

She didn’t want to do this, anymore.

She wanted to go back, and be the girl with the tea set and the skateboard and the grazes on her shins, who didn’t always feel safe or brave, but never felt alone, when the boy with the freckles and the bruises and the gentle smile was by her side. 

But it couldn’t be.

What she had said to Bryce, and hidden from Monty, wasn’t the only thing she had kept locked away inside of herself where it couldn’t hurt him.

And, with the two polaroids lying face down in the bottom of her bag at her feet, one plastered with sports tape and _he won’t stop_ in blue marker and handwriting that wasn’t Monty’s, she couldn’t quite shake the feeling that, maybe, he had done the same. 

“Monty-“

“Hey, Monty!” 

He stiffened at Bryce’s voice, calling from inside the pool house where he twisted toward him over the back of the couch. 

“Didn’t you used to go to Little League at the rec centre?”

Monty’s jaw went tight and he straightened before turning toward the open door of the pool house. Inside, past his elbow, Chloe could see Scott, sitting at the opposite end of the couch, his teeth sunk into the inside of his cheek and his expression guarded but concerned, Ramon, sitting in the armchair with the mouth of the bong at his lips, the lighter in his hand stilled as he turned his attention toward the television, and Luke, standing near the bar with an armload of soda cans, blinking uncertainly as he looked from Bryce to Scott to Monty. 

On the television screen was a local news bulletin, and the man in the photograph was almost a decade older than she remembered, his hair thinner and his face more lined than the last time she had been him, but she recognised Coach Nathan instantly. Beneath the photograph, the new story headline was stamped. 

CHILD PORNOGRAPHY ARREST

Chloe tried to keep her expression as still as she could, uncertain whether Bryce could see her past Monty, even as her throat tightened and her chest constricted with dread and guilt, a years’ old scar of utter helplessness torn open inside of her. Monty didn’t quite turn to look at her, but he tipped his head downward for a moment, and in profile, she watched him collect himself – building his barricades brick by brick. Until they were so secure that the calm, unreadable mask that he had constructed to hide the searing pain of that reopened wound was less a fortress than a prison, barring anyone else from entry at the cost of trapping himself inside with it. 

In that moment, she realised that Bryce didn’t need to do almost anything at all to enforce his control or their captivity. 

They were so practiced at it, they applied the chains themselves, and handed him the key.

Monty didn’t look at her as he headed back into the pool house. 

“Sure,” he said and she could hear the curve of the smile that he forced as he beat all of them to the punchline, snatching the chance to make a vulgar joke at his own expense before any of them could take it. “Where do you think I learned to suck dick so good?”

As the boys burst into peals of laughter that drowned out the news anchor speaking on the screen, Chloe leaned over to pick up her bag from the pavement, and got up. As she walked, moving quickly and deliberately before any of them could call out to her, she drew her phone from her bag. Thumbing the power button, she tapped in the code quickly – Monty’s house number and then hers – and tapped to open her text messages. When she reached the driveway, she paused by the Jeep to scroll to Jessica Davis’s number, and entered a quick text.

_I’ll meet the lawyer. Let me know when and where_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to comfortwriter28 for the beta checking and chats :) I'm sorry there are pretty much no happy chapters in this fic, but hopefully this one was at least a slight reprieve from the last few.
> 
> Next up is Bryce, through the more palatable and likeable filter of Zach, and will be the first chapter the slips into the s3 timeline. 
> 
> After that, it's going to be a series of 'lasts'. Last parent chapter (Chloe's mother) and the last chapters for each of our four little peas. 
> 
> Thank you for reading and commenting x


	20. the Shadow King

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bryce hands over his throne at Liberty High to a reluctant Zach Dempsey.

**Spring Fling**

“Zachy.”

Bryce knew he should probably feel a little hurt at the way that the other boy’s shoulders tensed beneath his jacket where he was leaning on the bar, waiting for the ‘bartender’ to bring him a bottle of water or apple juice or whatever lame shit they were serving, but mostly he just felt satisfaction that he still had enough power over him to elicit a reaction. Bryce propped his elbow on the bar by the other boy, who acknowledged him reluctantly, his brow damp beneath his hair from leaping around like a lunatic with Justin, Jensen and the punk kids. 

They looked like idiots, but they also looked like they were having fun, which bothered him more than he cared to admit.

“Where’s Chloe?” Zach asked, conversationally, or at least, that was what he aimed for. Bryce could hear the thin note of hope that bumped around beneath the words, Zach as transparent and earnest in his endeavours as ever. In an attempt to cover his misplaced interest, Zach looked around at the bodies dancing in the dark beneath the sprawling faux crystal chandelier, splashed with yellow and purple lights, as he accepted a bottle of water from the man on the other side of the bar. “Or Monty?”

Bryce slipped the flask from the inside breast pocket of his jacket, and offered it to the other boy. Zach glanced at it but shook his head, twisting the cap from the bottle of water in his hands instead. 

“Bathroom” Bryce explained, briefly, in answer to the first question, and then cocked his head with a chuckle. “And how the fuck should I know? Not here, that I’ve seen.” He raised his shoulder in a carless shrug, and tipped the flask to his lips. “Probably couldn’t afford the rental suit.” The corner of his mouth ticked up, amused at the image. “Or couldn’t fit the jacket sleeve over that cast.”

Zach cast him a sidelong look, as uncomfortable as he always got when someone spoke plainly, not bothering to dull the rough edges or pretty-up the truth. 

“I guess I figured you might care, seeing as how he’s gotta be the only friend you’ve got left.”

It was unexpectedly blunt, far more direct than Zach would normally dare to be, and Bryce had to wonder if, in different circumstances – circumstances that wouldn’t land him in a jail cell should he retaliate in the way that he wished, irrationally and instinctively, that he could – Zach would have had the courage to speak to him that way. Less than two days ago, in the baseball team locker rooms, he had been standoffish – judgemental, but still hesitant to speak freely – as Bryce had explained that he would be transferring to Hillcrest as a junior, and seeing them all again on the football field next year. 

All of his boys – his court, his kingdom – on the other side of the 50-yard line. 

“Don’t you get it, Zachy?” Bryce asked, genuinely curious, although not especially surprised. Zach was always too wrapped up in being polite and inoffensive to see things as they were. Too busy trying to avoid stepping on anyone’s toes or hurting anyone’s feelings, to be agreeable and likeable and _Zach_ , to realise the truth. “All of that shit, the baseball team, the football team, all those guys, Monty and Justin; they all belong to you, now.”

It stung more than Bryce wished it would to admit it, even as he told himself that he was giving those things up willingly, casting them off like the useless and broken parts of his old life that they were, in order to start afresh. 

Zach looked at him for a moment, and Bryce had to wonder if maybe the thought _had_ occurred to him, if the other boy had speculated about what happened next, who would take the crown now that Bryce had been forced to relinquish it. Zach liked people to think himself humble and unassuming, but Bryce thought that the other boy must have at least considered it – the fact that, even as part of Bryce’s court, he has always been the obvious second choice for the position at the top of the Liberty High food chain. He didn’t have the natural ability or drive to lead, and he didn’t have quite the same level of wealth or influence or popularity, but with Scott leaving and a dark horse contender anyway, and Jeff dearly departed and gone forever, leaving candidates like Justin and Monty, Zach was the obvious pick as successor to the throne.

The shadow king.

Because Bryce would never truly be replaced, not entirely, not by anyone who came after him. 

His imprint would last at Liberty forever. 

“Nah,” Zach shook his head, casually. “Baseball’s done and Monty would take the vote for football captain by a landslide.”

Even though the idea amused him – what in the fuck would Monty do with leadership of the football team? – Bryce knew that it was true. In his absence, the other boys would vote for the next closest thing. He didn’t consider Monty a rival, or even a pale shade of what he had been to the Tigers, but he couldn’t deny that the other boy had, for the past three years, been an extension of himself, like a phantom limb, acting on Bryce’s thoughts and impulses as if they were his own. For the team, voting for Monty would be the next closest thing to voting for Bryce, in circumstances where that wasn’t possible. 

It was a strange, frustrating sort of comfort, even if it would never amount to anything. 

“C’mon, man,” Bryce said with an amused smile. “You and I both know Morris wouldn’t give Monty captain if he fucking got on his knees and begged for it.” 

Zach’s jaw tightened, and he didn’t say anything, but he didn’t protest or offer any counterargument, either. Bryce was right, and they both knew it. 

“Look,” Bryce said, amicably, nudging the other boy’s elbow. “Let me give you some advice, huh?” 

Zach shook his head.

“No thanks.” 

He looked as if he wanted to leave, but was either waiting for someone else and trapped in place until they arrived, or too polite to walk away without ending the conversation with proper manners, his mother’s lessons in courtesy too deeply ingrained to deny, despite whatever hate or contempt he felt in that moment and shoved down where he hid every other disappointment and fury that he wouldn’t let himself show.

It wasn’t healthy, to deny those things. One day, Bryce thought, cracks were going to form in that all-American high school hero façade, and someone was going to bear the brunt of all of that repressed anger. 

Bryce smiled, and somewhere deep down, it felt genuine. 

“C’mon, man. We were brothers, weren’t we? I want you to succeed,” he grinned lopsidedly, offering. “Honest. I want to help you. If only so that when we hand your team their asses next season, I’ll know you gave it your best shot.”

Zach looked away in an unsubtle attempt to suppress the urge to roll his eyes. 

“You should really save your pointers for Monty,” he muttered. 

Jesus fucking Christ, anyone would think he didn’t _want_ the crown. That he was hoping that Monty would snatch the opportunity out of his hands and run it into the ground, the way he did everything else.

“Monty is never going to be captain,” Bryce insisted. “And that’s exactly how it should be.” When Zach gave him a disgusted look, apparently offended on the other boy’s behalf by whatever inference he took from the statement - racist, classist, or otherwise - Bryce held up a hand to give him pause. “Monty works harder when you withhold the things he wants.”

“Dude-“ Zach shifted uneasily, and it was Bryce’s turn to roll his eyes as he took another sip from the flask. Honestly, sometimes, Zach’s sensibilities were as soft and delicate as dandelion fluff. It was no fucking wonder the guys never got tired of the momma’s boy jokes. 

“I mean it, man,” Bryce pressed on, despite that the other boy did his best to act as if he wasn’t speaking at all. “He’ll do anything you tell him to, if he thinks you have what he wants and might consider letting him have it in return.”

Zach was clearly uncomfortable, and wanted to move away, but was reluctant to draw any attention to the fact that they were standing together at the bar, to let his new friends – Jensen and Standall, those poser punk kids – see them talking and think that he wanted anything to do with Bryce anymore. 

It was a strange sensation, realising that someone found his presence repulsive, but not unfamiliar. In a way, it reminded Bryce of childhood, and home. And there was a small measure of satisfaction in twisting that discomfort to his advantage. 

Because Bryce felt certain that, underneath all of that polite unease, part of Zach wanted to be king, to understand how to achieve that balance between love and adoration, control and fealty. Zach was adept enough at the first part – he always had been - but they both knew that Bryce was masterful at the second. 

Bryce offered a casual shrug. 

“And if he still won’t do what he’s told, just try this.”

His cheek dimpled as Zach stood, rigid beneath his jacket and jaw clenched, while Bryce reached along the bar behind him, and pressed a hand between his shoulder blades. 

~

**Zach**

For the most part, Zach put Bryce’s _advice_ as far from his mind as he could. He had no interest in replicating Bryce’s dictatorship, his unquestioned leadership of the boys around him disguised as simple alpha-male charm. He wouldn’t use force or coercion, he wouldn’t shame or blackmail anyone into doing anything they didn’t want to do, and if anyone didn’t like it, they had the power to leave – a choice Bryce had never offered. 

Despite his initial heated reaction to losing the captaincy, which wasn’t unexpected - they all knew he had won the vote; even Zach had voted written Monty’s name on the little slip of paper that he had dropped into the water cooler on vote day, a reluctant decision in recognition of the futility of any other option - in general, Monty was a good sport about being denied the position. Zach wasn’t naive enough to believe that the boy’s moderate attitude had anything to do with respect or acceptance. Much more likely, he simply acknowledged that he had no other option but to toe the line, especially with their final season of baseball cancelled and his position on the wrestling team involuntarily relinquished. Like some of the other boys, Justin and Luke, for example, who didn’t have the grades to support even a slim hope at college admission, Monty was depending on football to facilitate the next step in his life, and was not so pigheaded that he couldn’t shut his mouth from time to time if it was a means to an end. 

Truth told, he was a player the team couldn’t afford to lose. He could be self-serving, a lot of the time, but Zach was willing to chalk that up to the influence of Bryce and, setting that aside, there was no denying the obvious; Monty was a senior player on the team, with three seasons under his belt, a fearless dedication to executing plays to the best of his ability, and as long as he would get the opportunity to hurt _somebody_ , he was obedient to instruction. He was willing to support younger and more inexperienced players, and although Zach would have preferred if he didn’t regurgitate Bryce’s poisoned perspectives to them, the junior team members clearly looked up to him. With the team rocked by Bryce’s departure and Zach’s surprise election to captaincy, he needed to be able to tap into that. 

Monty’s expression was guarded and full of suspicion when Zach named him as part of the team’s leadership group. The concept was a new one that he had discussed at length with Kerba and, honestly, the coach wasn’t sure it was the best direction to take, worried that the other boys would take the second level of leadership as an indication that Zach was as underconfident in his own ability as a leader as they were, but he understood Zach’s need to make a break from the totalitarian leadership of Bryce, and was willing to let him try. Zach half expected Monty to throw the offer back in his face, rejecting the position as tokenistic and refusing to be reduced to a support role, but the cheers of their teammates at his selection seemed to quieten any hesitation that the other boy had, and anyway, second fiddle was a position he knew well. 

They didn’t always see eye to eye – in fact, most of the time, they were at odds – and Zach could see the way that Monty’s jaw clenched with fury when he was overruled, but generally, the other boy took his duties as seriously as Zach could have asked.

The thing that they clashed over most was the team culture. 

It was difficult to tell if it was deliberate or simply an involuntary, natural reaction to the void left by Bryce, but Monty grew into that space, as if he had spent years in shadow and suddenly had access to the sunlight he needed to thrive, leaning in to all of those toxic behaviours that had secured Bryce his position at the top as he strove upwards. For the most part, it was a frustration. Zach ignored or avoided him, and cautioned the others against following his example too closely. Sometimes, the banter got a bit too out of hand, especially when it came to the campaigning on campus against male athletes. Even though Zach didn’t agree with the methods that the _Hands Off_ group were deploying to communicate their messages, or their simplistic, heavy-handed goal of defunding and cancelling all boys’ sports instead of trying to tackle the actual issue of the culture that permeated them, which he might have been willing to work together with them on, he had to respect their right to express themselves.

Sometimes, the locker room conversations about their initiatives were at odds with that. 

“Just try to remember, they’re coming from a good place,” Zach suggested, looking at the other boys, whose expressions ranged from angry to frustrated, uncomfortable to contrite. “Something terrible was done to them, and they’re pissed off about it. They have a right to be.”

Monty scoffed at his side.

“So, some shit happens to them, and now we all gotta do what they say?” he asked, incredulous. Zach didn’t want to think about it, tried to push the thought away, because he didn’t want to admit that he understood. The logic was simplistic and flawed, but he could see the way Monty had taken it. If all it took was something terrible being dealt at the hands of another to be owed a listening ear, then someone should have probably offered the other boy a megaphone years ago, back before the cuts and bruises and missed days had become so common that they no longer even prompted comment. Monty shook his head and, as a small mercy, made an alternative argument. “Powderpuff isn’t allowed because they don’t like it? The fuck happened to freedom of choice? If they don’t wanna play, nobody’s making them.” He screwed up his nose. “Don’t wanna see most of them in their fucking underwear anyway.”

The boys laughed, and one of them reminded the others that Tyler Down was a member of the group, throwing them all into a round of hollering and guffawing as they bandied around suggestions about what style of bra and panties he would wear to participate. 

“Guys…” Zach tried, but he had lost them, their amusement escalating as they one-upped one another with guesses ranging from adult diapers to a bedazzled thong, their laughter rising in volume and their suggestions increasingly lewd with every contender thrown into the ring. 

Zach didn’t disagree with the sentiment – it shouldn’t be up to the student council or HO or anyone other than those who chose to be involved to decide whether or not they wanted to participate. But this wasn’t helping, and if he didn’t do something, intervene somehow, Monty and his boys were going to play directly into Jess’s hands, proving her steadfast opinions about football supporting sexism, objectification and rape culture to be fair and correct. And then Zach would not only have to deal with the frustration of the administration and ire of the team over the cancellation of Powderpuff, and whatever other repercussions followed, but also Kerba’s _I told you so_ look when taking a gamble on selecting Monty for a leadership role blew up in his face. 

Silently, as Monty reeled back toward him from patting Charlie on the shoulder, laughing wildly at his suggestion of pink lace, Zach reached with one hand under the guise of steadying him, and placed it firmly between the other boy’s shoulder blades. 

Zach wasn’t sure what he expected, but Monty wilted immediately. He didn’t attempt to pull away – perhaps that would have drawn too much attention – but everything seemed to drain from him all at once, the amusement from his expression, the colour from his face, the sound of his laughter. The other boys didn’t appear to notice, continuing raucously with their suggestions, which escalated from a red leather bustier set to a black latex gimp suit. There was, in a strange way, an incredible tension in the other boy - Zach could feel him holding his breath and bristling defensively, as if he might be able to remove his hand by sheer force of will - but at the same time, a submissiveness, an acceptance of the punishment of the unwanted touch which seemed entirely involuntary. 

Unsettled, Zach broke the contact, dropping his hand back to his side, almost hoping that the other boy would recover and return to the inappropriate joking, but it made no difference. Whatever switch it was that Bryce had alluded to that night, he had flicked it, and the damage was done. Beneath the boisterous laughter of the other boys, Monty muttered something about taking a leak, and moved away quickly in the direction of the bathrooms. 

After a moment, with one more pleading warning of “ _guys, c’mon_ ” to the other boys, who quietened down but continued to snigger, Zach followed.

With a nauseating punch of guilt, Zach found Monty crouched on the tiled floor in the corner of the bathroom, his back turned defensively to the wall, his elbows on his knees and his unsteady hands threaded through his hair. His head was tucked down, in the most protective posture Zach thought he had ever seen the other boy take, and his breathing was ragged, sharp and harsh on the exhale, shaking and uneven on the inhale. 

Zach clenched his jaw, shame flooding through him. He should have known better than to take advice from Bryce. 

“You-“ he cut himself off when Monty flinched at the sound of his voice in the otherwise quiet room. He had seen the other boy defensive, and wary, almost all the time, even when he acted full of brash bravado, but never frightened, and never of him. Zach hesitated by the door at the other end of the room. “You OK?”

The answer was clear, but Zach couldn’t think of anything else to say. _I’m sorry_ , even though he didn’t know what exactly for? _Bryce told me to do it_? The most fucked up thing was the Monty would probably accept that as an excuse. 

At the other end of the room, Monty blew a harsh breath out through his nose. 

“Fuck you, Dempsey,” he muttered, refusing to look at the other boy, his expression mostly hidden behind his hands. And then, to Zach’s surprise, as he turned to leave, certain that he couldn’t make the situation any better, and could only make it worse by remaining, he added, “And fuck Bryce.”

Guilt hung like a heavy weight around his neck. Monty acted like an idiot a lot of the time, but he wasn’t imperceptive. Zach could claim innocence, and in any other circumstances, perhaps he would have gotten away with it. But Monty knew punishment better than he knew football or violence or pain. He had been trained to understand correction, and he knew that there was nothing coincidental about what Zach had done, or how he came to know how to do it. 

Shame choking any explanation he might have offered, Zach left the other boy alone to collect himself. 

After that, Monty still argued with his calls, from time to time, but only from the safety of the other side of the huddle. If ever circumstance found them shoulder to shoulder, he stood quiet and placid, nodding obediently to accept instructions he would have normally protested against. The way he would have obeyed unquestioningly if Bryce were still captain. 

And every time, it made Zach feel sick.

~

**Spring Fling**

Zach rolled his shoulders, a subtle attempt to dislodge Bryce’s hand. 

“What the hell?” Zach asked, unable to articulate the question any further. 

What did it mean? What would it achieve? How did Bryce know about it? 

“Who knows?” Bryce shrugged carelessly, withdrawing his hand. “It fucking works, though.”

Zach looked at him like he was suggesting he correct the other boy’s behaviour by hitting him on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper like a disobedient dog. Honestly, Bryce could admit, it wasn’t all that far off. The only thing that motivated Monty more than withholding what he wanted, was threatening to take away what little he already had. And while Bryce hadn’t been lying when he said that his advice was offered on the basis that he wanted Zach to do as well as he could – mostly so that he could watch the other boy struggle and fail to achieve what he had – he wasn’t going to hand over his most effective trade secrets and lose his competitive edge. Not when he might still have need for them yet. 

Because as much as Zach was stepping, albeit with outward reluctance, into his place at the top, and as much as Bryce knew he had to find some way to be OK with that if he wasn’t going to drive himself insane with envy, an instinct he had little experience managing or moderating, he wasn’t willing to give up completely – not just yet. If things didn’t go as well as they should at Hillcrest – and even if they did, and he just felt a pang of nostalgia, or boredom, and wanted to step back into the good old days again, to remember why those times had felt so golden – he would need to keep a card or two up his sleeve. 

Monty’s game winning play was easiest, because his motivations had always been the simplest to read.

And even though he was a fucking idiot most of the time, he could take a hint. 

Especially one made pointedly, like that day at the table by the back quad.

“I want you to sort this shit out with Jensen,” Bryce had instructed, refusing to turn a look over his shoulder to see if Chloe had paused or glanced back as she hurried away, her giddy excitement over his invitation to summer on the Amalfi coast with his family suddenly grounded by the arrival of Scott and Monty at the table. 

“What does that mean?” Scott asked, glancing at both of them, hesitation edging his tone. Monty said nothing, already chastised for speaking and chewing at the same time, and otherwise unwilling to overstep by guessing at the intention behind Bryce’s instruction. It was both satisfying and infuriating. 

“I mean sort it the fuck out,” Bryce snapped at the other boy, frustrated. “Isn’t that what you said? That putting those tapes online was fucked up and we should do something?” He looked at both of them, and while his gaze landed on Scott, who had asked the question, the words were clearly not designed for him, although Scott was the only one at the table who didn’t know it. “Unless that was bullshit and you’d rather act like a pair of pussy-ass faggots?”

Scott looked like he might say something further, sitting back from his untouched lunch, when Monty motioned with one hand to stop him.

“It’s alright,” he said, to Scott, and then, looking at Bryce. “I’ll deal with it.”

Bryce cocked an eyebrow. He had expected the other boy to take his meaning clearly – both the request and the threat that followed it - but he wanted to be certain. Jensen had been a cocky little idiot for thinking that he could pull something like that – that he could release those tapes anonymously, as if anyone with two functioning braincells wouldn’t realise, the minute they heard the fourteenth recording, exactly who was responsible – and he clearly had a fucking death-wish, following that up with a demand through gritted teeth that Bryce get his hands off of him while he tried to offer him an olive branch as they strolled down the main hallway. 

_Watch your fucking tone_ , Bryce had warned, through a bright smile, although really, it was too late for that. _And, you know, watch yourself._

Deputy Principal Childs had interrupted before he had finished what he had intended to say, but Jensen had looked at him, sidelong, suspicious, and Bryce didn’t want that effort wasted.

“You’re gonna deal with it?” he verified, looking at Monty directly, so that the other boy could not mistake his intent. He expected no holds barred, undiluted _regret_ from Clay once he was done.

And if he didn’t achieve that, then the regret would be Monty’s, instead. 

“Yeah, man,” Monty had shrugged, casually, and almost took another bite of his sandwich, but stopped himself, apparently realising, belatedly, that it would be best not to test his luck by talking around another mouthful of food. “Jensen’s got gym sixth period when I’ve got study break. I’ll sort it out.”

He had said it as calmly as if he were agreeing to give someone a ride home, or save them a seat in class. 

And, without having it spelled out for him what he should do, or what the consequences would be if he didn’t, Monty had collected a couple of guys from the team, and a few catcher’s masks to hide their faces, and he sorted it out. 

Because if his options were to lose something he had, or hurt someone else, he would make the same choice, every time.

Justin was almost as easy.

Everything just worked in reverse.

Justin wouldn’t hurt others, most of the time. He was too soft for that. But he would hurt himself, or allow himself to be hurt, with barely any hesitation, and it was almost exactly as simple to achieve; it required less thought but just a little bit more effort, because instead of refusal of what he wanted, all Bryce had ever had to do was give. 

The tricky part was making sure only to give when he got something in return.

The son of a junkie and conditioned to having to rely on scant resources to secure what he needed, Justin could be manipulative on an emotional level that even Bryce was impressed by, on occasion. It was subtle and often didn’t seem deliberate, Justin’s focus usually on the ends while the means to achieve it were deployed instinctually and without any particular intent. Certainly, his techniques were far more passive than anything Bryce had ever found use for, but there was no denying that his puppy dog eyes, that pathetic, defensive way that he would round his shoulders and duck his head to make himself look like the small, neglected animal he was, and of course, the brilliance of an unrestrained Foley smile, were effective tools that even worked on Bryce, from time to time. 

Zach was familiar with all of them. He had been on the receiving end, often enough. 

Probably, Zach didn’t even realise that, when Justin approached him with cap in hand, he was being played by someone whose emotional sophistication wasn’t limited to trying not to blush when someone mentioned a pretty girl, like Zach’s was. 

And Bryce doubted he had ever really considered what lay behind that forlorn gaze or bright smile, too busy being swept along in the current of what Justin wanted in that moment, exactly the way Justin hoped he would be.

Still.

“Justin’s just as easy,” Bryce offered, and if Zach had seemed uncomfortable discussing Monty like he was a scientific specimen, he practically shuddered at the mention of Justin’s name, barely suppressing the physical urge to protest.

“I don’t wanna know, man,” he insisted, and shuffled a few inches further along the bar, clearly concerned that Bryce might suggest some sort of physical correction technique that would bend Justin to his will. 

Bryce almost smiled at the thought. 

Although he was less unpredictable about it than Monty, far less inclined to flinch or bristle defensively the way the other boy did, as if he’d been conditioned to anticipate pain from every touch; Justin could, from time to time, be corrected through physical action. Usually, it was a simple enough reaction, a hand raised too fast or too close triggering some muscle memory from a past boyfriend of his mother’s, or maybe Amber herself, that would cause him to shrink into himself like a frightened animal. A lot of the time, Bryce noticed it only when it occurred through mindless coincidence, and he rarely bothered to deploy it deliberately – it was too unpredictable to be worthwhile, when there were far more reliable methods available to him. 

Because, as with most things, Justin was Monty’s polar opposite when it came to touch. Bryce had never seen and couldn’t begin to imagine how Monty might react to a genuinely offered gesture of physical comfort, but for Justin, those opportunities were gold. Something as simple as reaching out from the end of his California King mattress, when they had been young, to touch the other boy’s shoulder and wake him gently from nightmares that had him twisting in the blankets on the camping cot at the end of the bed, was the foundation that their relationship was built on. In those moments, Justin would look at him with pure, unfiltered gratitude and trust. All Bryce could think was that it was ironic that one of the most effective tools he’d ever learned to support the connection between them had been borne of frustration one night when Justin’s tossing and turning had kept him awake and the other boy hadn’t responded to his hissed request to be quiet.

“See, you say that,” Bryce said, a hint of chiding in his tone as he slid a sidelong look at Zach. “But I think you do.” He raised his shoulder in a shrug. “And when it comes to Justy, I think you probably already know. You just try to ignore it.” He smirked, a little, watching Zach twist the cap back and forth on his bottle of water uncomfortably. “And yet, you give him what he wants anyway. Every time he asks. And that keeps him coming back for more.”

Zach shook his head.

“Remind me how you have any friends?” he requested, rhetorically. “Really. If this is the way you talk about guys who you call your brother, how do you have any friends, at all?”

Bryce just cocked an eyebrow at him.

“Well, I had _you_ for a while there,” he reminded the other boy, whose cheeks pinkened, just a little, beneath the spinning purple and yellow lights that washed over them. “Didn’t I, Zachy?”

~

**Zach**

It was easier to disregard Bryce’s words when it came to Justin.

From that first week of Freshman year, it had been the four of them – Bryce, Justin, Monty and Zach – but as time went on and they grew together and apart in different ways, and different boys – Scott, Jeff, Luke – came and went, the dynamic between them evolved and changed. While Monty had taken to Bryce’s side naturally, replacing the kind of abuse he was used to with another that didn’t hurt quite so much and was easier to hide, so that he didn’t have to wonder why no one did anything about it; Justin proved his capacity for devotion and affection to be fathomless. Without detracting from or dividing his loyalty to Bryce, which was complex and endlessly deep after years of relying solely on one another, Justin grew connections and love for others, organically and from nothing, his faith in other people scarcely dulled by years of having his trust broken by almost every person he gifted it to. 

It was a special thing, Zach knew. And as much as he could, in the domain and within the rules of Bryce’s court, he cherished it.

Justin wasn’t just one of Bryce’s boys, like Monty. Justin was Zach’s friend. 

And of course, Zach knew that Justin got things out of their friendship – but he didn’t believe it was in the parasitic, one-sided way that Bryce suggested. Friendship _was_ an exchange. It was offering and receiving what they needed as humans – connection, companionship, love and support – and things that they needed individually – the comfort and confidence that came from being around someone else who didn’t care about all of that toxic masculinity bullshit that the boys around them learned at home and brought into their teams and reinforced. There were many more things that separated them, but Zach and Justin bonded over the things that they shared – the brotherhood of sports, the catharsis that came just as easily from physical activity as late-night video games or an afternoon watching a stupid comedy at the Crestmont, care and respect and empathy, and, after Zach’s dad had died, how to be a boy, and grow into a man, without a father. 

When Justin was released from juvenile detention, it felt like a lifetime since he had last seen the other boy, and Zach had barely been able to contain himself. He knew that it was inappropriate – that even though Hannah’s parents hadn’t wanted a sombre affair, shouting in the middle of a wake was still impolite – but he hadn’t been able to help the bark of joyful laughter that burst from him when Justin had walked into Monet’s with Lainie Jensen, his feet carrying him forwards before he even knew what he was doing, Justin’s frame smaller and lighter than he remembered it ever being, even when they were freshman, as he lifted him in a tight bearhug. 

Without Bryce, everything that came afterwards should have been easier. 

At first, it was. Without his shadow looming over them, with Bryce off with his rich pals at Hillcrest and no cause for any of them to interact with him anywhere other than the football field, everything felt brighter. The air felt clearer, the summer warmer, and as Zach had worked on breaking down Justin’s steadfast, self-deprecating resistance to returning to football, he felt like, for the first time, he and Justin could be the friends they had always wanted to be able to be – the kind of friends who told each other everything, who didn’t keep secrets, who turned to each other when they needed help, and were always there for one another, whatever they needed. Once, Bryce had been all of that, and more – _everything_ – to Justin. But as the season got underway, and his fitness returned, and the camaraderie and support of the team bolstered his spirits, Zach felt like Justin was beginning to see that he didn’t need Bryce for that, or for anything, anymore. 

Or at least, that was what he thought. 

Their first away game against East County had been a difficult grind from the beginning. Some of the guys – Luke, Monty – were at their best, Luke as immovable and dedicated as ever, Monty as boisterous and brutal as always, as they fought tooth and nail toward the half-time buzzer, clinging desperately to keep the margin between the scores as slim as possible, to maintain their hold on a fighting chance. When Justin missed coverage on his man in what should have been a straightforward manoeuvre, seeming to give up almost immediately when the other boy slipped past his grasp, scarcely attempting to give chase, Zach was as frustrated as the other boys, but he chalked it up to nerves. It was Justin’s first away game, and he imagined the other boy was feeling the pressure of the crowds and his teammates, and even though Kerba had their best interests at heart, he could be a little skewed toward _tough_ in his tough love approach, sometimes. 

Hoping to ease the other boy’s hesitation, Zach headed for the water cooler at half-time, aiming for casual as he reassured Justin that he would have the opportunity to improve in the second half. 

As he turned and reached for a cup, he felt Justin lingering to his right, and although he tried to push the sensation away, dread trickled through him, pooling heavily in the pit of his stomach. 

“Dude. I-“ Justin hesitated, looking away, looking anywhere but his face as Zach turned to him. And Zach thought he knew what was coming, felt it twisting in his gut even though he didn’t want to believe it. He wanted to stop Justin, in the moment that the other boy met his gaze, and beg him not to say what he knew was coming. “I’m not gonna pass this drug test.”

Fuck.

Failing a drug test wasn’t just on Justin. It wasn’t just a strike against his probationary release from juvenile detention. It was on Zach, as his captain. It was on Coach Morris, and on Kerba, who had made it his personal mission to keep Justin focussed and motivated and convinced him not to quit every time that his unconditioned body and mind had wanted to give up. Zach had thought that it was just lack of practice – basketball wasn’t anything like football, and Justin had a long stretch of hopscotching back and forth between drug use and detox since he had last played any competitive sport. It would take time before he could keep up with the others as they ran sprints and lifted weights and shoved practice sleds up and down the field. Now, he saw that lack of fitness and conditioning wasn’t the issue. And it could cost them everything.

And that wasn’t the only thought that doused the adrenaline from the game with disappointment and frustration and sadness. 

It was the reluctant, sickening realisation that Bryce had been right.

Because Justin wasn’t just telling him. If he all he had wanted was for Zach to know, he would have told him before now, before the game, when he might have been able to do something to intervene, to get him the support that he really needed. If Zach had known, then football would have been unimportant in comparison to making sure that Justin was safe and healthy. And Justin must have known that. If what Justin truly wanted was to get clean, and to be brothers again, he would have reached out before he was teetering on the edge of disaster. 

Now, he was coming to Zach, the way he would have approached Bryce in a moment of desperate need, and asking for his help.

“Man, I can’t-“ Zach hesitated, the words tasting like ash in his mouth, because every part of him _wanted_ to be able to fix this for Justin, and in a way, what he had to say felt like it was intended not for the other boy, but for Bryce, a denial of the truth in what he had warned. “-I can’t help you.”

Justin’s acceptance of his response was almost harder to take than his request for assistance. His eyes bright, even as he swallowed hard against the prickle of tears, Justin insisted that it was OK, that he understood and didn’t expect anything of him, that he had just wanted to be honest with him, first, and before anyone else, before he headed back onto the field. 

It wasn’t OK.

None of it was OK.

It wasn’t OK that Justin was using again. It wasn’t OK that Zach had no idea, until that moment, because he was supposed to be Justin’s friend, and what kind of friend didn’t notice something like that? It wasn’t OK, because Justin hadn’t felt like he could be honest with him, not until he was cornered with his back against the wall and had no other option. It wasn’t OK that the knowledge that Justin was using, and that his urine sample back in the locker rooms was a ticking time bomb, primed to cause the inevitable implosion of the other boy’s life and send him rocketing back into an even darker place than he must already be inhabiting, to have turned to drugs again, ate at Zach through the rest of the second half, so that when they lost the game by only a few points, he barely even felt it. It wasn’t OK that, as the team headed into the showers to clean up and change before boarding the bus to go home, Justin accepted the frustration and ire of the other boys for his poor performance as if he deserved it. 

It was far, far from OK that, while Coach Morris and Kerba were chatting with the officials around the corner, and the other boys were packing their things into their duffel bags, checking the room for any dropped or forgotten equipment, Zach slipped over to the table where they had been instructed to set down their samples before heading onto the field and, quickly and quietly, twisted the lid off of the plastic specimen jar bearing Justin’s name and number, and switched it with the linebacker who had taken a heavy hit in the second half which had dislocated his knee for the fourth time in three seasons, ending any hope that he had of playing again in senior year. 

It was the furthest thing from OK that, as he set the sample jars down and moved quickly away, Zach realised that, in his position, it was probably exactly what Bryce would have done. 

“I got you,” he told Justin, honestly, but angrily, as they headed out to the bus. 

Zach felt terrible, guilt for snapping at Justin layered on top of shame for having cheated a system he believed in, and disappointment that he wasn’t the man of fair and righteous conviction that his father had raised him to be, and frustration that Justin had put him in an impossible position that he knew, underneath, was actually just frustration at himself, for his own decisions and actions, that he attempted desperately to deflect. Justin hadn’t asked him to cheat. He hadn’t asked him to find a way to rescue him, to switch the samples, to put his own position on the team and his own college chances at risk in a desperate attempt to keep his friend from being hurt or losing more than he already had. 

Justin hadn’t asked him to do anything. 

Except that, in a way, he had. 

And Zach had done it. And he knew; he would do it again. 

As they rode the bus back to Evergreen, Justin sitting, silent and contrite, beside him, while Charlie turned in his seat and tried to engage him in conversation, Monty dozing against the window to his left within minutes of setting off, mostly, Zach just felt sick, as he realised that, even though it wasn’t what he wanted and he didn’t think Justin even truly realised it, and it horrified him to acknowledge it - in a way, Justin saw him the way that he did Bryce. And, in its bones, his friendship with Justin wasn’t so different to what Justin and Bryce had been to one another, after all. 

_Loyalty. It’s a thing, huh?_

~

**Spring Fling**

The caveat that Bryce held back, this time, was that giving was all good and well, and in Justin’s case, would achieve most basic outcomes like companionship and devotion, but it wasn’t enough to keep Justin in check. Not when bullshit like morality and emotions and love for another clouded what should have been an obvious path. 

The true control came from giving only enough so that Justin had no option but to come back for more. 

It was a technique that, Bryce figured, he probably would have worked out eventually – Justin wasn’t as easy a read as some other people, but he wasn’t masterful at secret keeping either. But, as it turned out, unlike most of Justin’s tells and tics, which he had learned to recognise early and without the sophistication or practice he had now, Justin himself had offered this one, and without even seeming to realise it.

It had been that first weekend of freshman year, and after a rocky start where it seemed like Monty was probably going to punch _somebody_ before he left – who, exactly, less clear – the afternoon had turned out pretty well. Kat had paid Justin a little more attention than Bryce had expected, considering the alternatives available. He supposed that Zach was probably too nice to really hold her interest – she seemed like the kind of girl who appreciated more challenge than that – and he knew that he could come across as intimidating, especially with the backdrop of his house and the pool and the hot tub, while Monty was wound so tight that, here and there, it seemed like he might even consider punching _her_ if she attempted one more sarcastic jibe at his expense. 

And yet, despite that he had gotten what he wanted, Justin had been quiet and withdrawn by the time they had left, Zach’s mother remaining for the entire _playdate_ to drive him home, and Kat and Monty heading off on foot toward the bus stop around the corner, Monty’s skateboard hanging from one hand between them. 

“Dude, what’re you doing?” Bryce had asked when he had returned from collecting the pizza they had ordered from the main house to find Justin packing his things into his backpack, the lights from the hot tub outside filtering through the plantation blinds and splicing the otherwise dimly lit pool house around him. “I thought you were staying the night?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I was-“ Justin had been flustered, looking for one of his socks, his gaze roaming the room in every direction other than Bryce’s. “I just-“ He picked up a couple of cushions that had fallen from the couch, but found nothing underneath. “My Ma needs me, so-“

Bryce had rolled his eyes and set the pizza boxes down on the coffee table resolutely. 

“She’s a fucking adult, man. She doesn’t need shit.” He flopped into the armchair, catching the gaming controller that threatened to tip off of the edge of the arm where he had left it. He gestured toward the television, where the menu screen of Super Smash Bros was paused. “C’mon, man. You owe me a rematch.”

He was _not_ going to let Justin’s Pikachu beat his Donkey Kong again.

Justin hadn’t moved, the cushions still held loosely in his hands, although he seemed less intent upon finding his missing sock and more as if he had simply run down, his energy and his capacity to move reduced, in the space of a moment, to zero. Bryce had glanced up at the other boy as he leaned forward to flip open the lid of one of the pizza boxes. 

“It’s pretty bad this time,” Justin said softly, glancing down at his phone on the coffee table as if it were a grenade with the pin half-pulled, primed to detonate at any moment and without warning. “I just-“ He had paused, biting his lip, and shook his head. “I just wish there was some way I could give her what she needs, you know?”

By that stage in their friendship, Justin had given up a lot of the defensive emotional barriers he had tried to fortify in those first few years, eventually realising that they were both unnecessary and futile. Mostly, Justin’s openness worked to his advantage – Bryce never needed to expend much effort to understand what the other boy was thinking or feeling. But sometimes, that unguardedness could be unsettling, and Bryce had paused with his hand halfway to peeling loose a slice of pizza. 

“Justy, buddy,” Bryce had said, and waited until the other boy looked at him, clearwater blue eyes clouded with concern. “I don’t mean to be cruel, or whatever, but I feel like, whatever it is that she needs, it’s beyond anyone’s ability to give, man.”

Justin had nodded slowly and sank down to sit on the edge of the couch. 

“I know I can’t, like, fix her, or something,” Justin shrugged, his tone quiet and even, although it provided scant disguise for the heavy guilt and disappointment that he attempted to hide beneath it. “I just wish I could at least make it safer, somehow.” He blinked, and Bryce followed his gaze to where his missing sock was half hidden behind the leg of the coffee table. Justin didn’t move to retrieve it, instead murmuring, “I don’t want her to die.”

Bryce wasn’t sure that he understood – it seemed, to him, that Justin’s life would be infinitely less difficult or complicated if Amber were to pass away. There would be no more of the wondering and worrying, no more hoping that she would stay clean this time and disappointment when, predictably, she didn’t. There would be no more of that conflicted heartbreak, the back and forth tug of hoping and wishing and knowing and dreading. All of it had seemed, to Bryce, to be exhausting. 

He wasn’t sure he loved his parents – he wasn’t sure he loved anyone, or even could have if he wanted to – but what he felt for Justin was the closest thing that Bryce could conceptualize, and he didn’t want the other boy to hurt. Not for no reason or gain. Not the way that Amber hurt him.

And he couldn’t fix her – no one could, even Justin could see that – but maybe he could keep her from dying, for just a little while longer. 

Bryce’s parents had normally left it up to the house staff to clean out the bathrooms, but his mother had been distracted by her father’s flagging health, and hadn’t thought to instruct them to tidy up the medicine cabinets for a while. In his parent’s en suite, Bryce found a half full bottle of Tramadol that his father sometimes took for migraines, a mostly full bottle of Percocet in his mother’s name from the time she had injured her back moving heavy plant pots around the backyard a few months earlier, and an almost empty bottle of OxyContin, the prescription label missing, or maybe issued from a hospital, with instructions for use and a warning that the contents was highly addictive, but no name.

He hadn’t trusted Justin not to just hand the bottles over to his mother with an optimistic smile, trusting her to do the right thing and hoping that, maybe this time, she might try just a little bit harder, or the stars might align, and she wouldn’t need any of that other shit any more. So he rationed the pills out, providing them to Justin in small batches, to be passed on to his mother in the same format, and in doing so, Justin had been his, in a way that he never had been before. 

In a way, Justin had belonged to him since that shared Twinkie in the cafeteria in the third grade, but like any friendship, they still had arguments. They got frustrated and tired of one another, said things that they shouldn’t have, or that they meant to but regretted later, and Bryce had never felt like any of that ebb and flow was enough to break the connection between them. But he realised when, after an argument arising out of a petty disagreement on the football field that had escalated to a shoving match, Justin still showed up, pouting and eyes on the ground, to meet him at Eisenhower Park on a Thursday night, as had become their routine pick up arrangement for the stolen pain medication, that as long as he had what Justin needed, the other boy would never begrudge him anything.

“Hey, have you seen Jess?”

Bryce looked past Zach, who stood uncomfortably, refusing to acknowledge the truth that, for a time, whether he wanted to admit it or not – they had been friends – for the source of the question. Alex glanced between them where he leaned on his cane, his expression tense and uncomfortable. 

“Alex, buddy,” Bryce grinned, cocking an eyebrow and raising the flask as if proposing a toast. “I like the new look, man.” He gestured vaguely at his outfit, sweeping up toward his fresh haircut. “You’re rocking it, brother. Scars and all.”

Alex just blinked at him. Zach, acting as if Bryce hadn’t spoken at all, turned his attention to the other boy. 

“No, dude. I haven’t seen her.” 

Apparently uninterested in anything else that either of them might have had to say, or just wrapped up in thoughts of Jessica, as Bryce assumed was almost always the case when it came to Standall, Alex moved away, supporting most of his weight on his cane as he headed toward the exit that led to the bathrooms. As Zach watched him leave, perhaps wishing that he might have had an excuse to follow, something flickered in his expression, and Bryce turned to look.

Chloe stepped quickly through the doorway leading back into the gymnasium, barely pausing to hold the door open for Alex before it swung closed on him, her pale cream frock streaming behind her as she strode away across the dancefloor, heading for one of the side doors that led out into the night. 

“I should probably check on that,” Bryce suggested, casually, tucking the flask back into the interior pocket of his jacket. He pushed away from the bar and, as he reached the edge of the dancefloor, turned one last look at Zach, whose dark gaze followed Chloe across the gymnasium. 

“One more tip for you, Zachy,” Bryce offered with a crooked smile. “Stay the fuck away from my girlfriend.”

~

**Zach**

The picnic tables in the woods at the edge of the tennis courts were a little too close for comfort, once Chloe transferred out of Liberty, and too inextricably entwined with all of the conversations they had had there, weeks of her talking through her feelings and hesitations, while he had tried to offer facts and reassurances that he had researched on the internet about the procedures and support available for terminating pregnancies. So, afterwards, through the summer that followed, when he wasn’t meeting up with Justin after summer school to needle him about signing up for football or to shoot some hoops at the park, he met Chloe on the concrete staircase that swept down the hill overlooking the navy pier and the docks beyond.

A lot of the time, they just chatted. About their younger sisters, and their mothers, about the school subjects they were struggling with – the list far longer on his side than hers, although she suggested that he think about picking up where they had left off with their study group, her smile genuine and encouraging. Sometimes she brought snacks – yoghurt pouches and rice crackers and homemade sandwiches. He tried to reciprocate, and although she wrinkled her nose with a grin, he thought she was less than impressed with his offerings of Mike and Ikes and Hot Tamales. Some afternoons, as the sun set over the water, Chloe would turn toward the cliffs that overlooked the county, where hikers would trek up from the waterhole in the woods to look out over the winding streets below. 

“How’s the team going?” Chloe asked one afternoon, dipping a carrot stick into a pot of hummus while he plucked grapes from the bunch they had been sharing. She looked back at him, sitting one step lower so that he could stretch his legs. “The girls on the squad said you set up a leadership group?”

Zach nodded.

“Ah, yeah. It’s, uh-“ he hesitated, pushing away thoughts of Bryce. _Stay the fuck away from my girlfriend_. Well, she wasn’t his girlfriend any more, and anyway, Chloe was perfectly capable of deciding who she wanted to spend her time with, even if it was someone like him, who wasn’t as different from Bryce as either of them wanted to believe. “It’s going OK. I mean, we lost our first away game to East County, but I think we can make it work, you know?”

Chloe smiled and nodded. Looking down at the snacks on the stair by her feet, she asked, without looking back at him,

“How did Monty take losing the vote?”

Zach blinked, surprised by the question.

“Oh, um,” he shook his head, stumbling for the right response with no idea how, or why, she wanted to know. “I don’t think he, like, lost the vote, per se, but-“ he shrugged awkwardly, although she still wasn’t looking at him. “It was fine. He was angry, but since then, it’s been fine.”

There was some relief in her smile when she looked back at him again, and Zach wondered if she had been worried about him, about the opposition he might face as unexpected and, in some ways, unwanted captain of the Tigers. He popped another grape into his mouth, hoping that the warmth that filled his chest wasn’t colouring his cheeks. 

“I think they made the right decision,” Chloe reassured him, her tone genuine and kind, as she reached to pluck a grape from the bunch he offered. “For both of you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading and commenting, and for sticking with this chapter (Bryce is gross, I know - we _all_ know) and with this fic! This is the final chapter before the last round. 
> 
> This section was based around the Beyond the Reasons segment that followed season 3, and spoke a lot about learned behaviours, how toxicity in the villain characters (and in people generally) is taught and not generally inherent, and how damaging it can be to see people as monsters, to make them bigger than ourselves, and assume their behaviour to be outside of the realm of possibility for anyone to fall into the trap of, even if they do so unmaliciously. 
> 
> Thank you to comfortwriter28 for the beta checking! I know the Bryce chapters are the worst to work through and I really appreciate you persevering! The fact that he makes you so mad makes me hope that he's landing somewhere true to canon character, and we've only got one more chapter of his to go!
> 
> The 'first' of the 'lasts', up next, is the final parent-led chapter, told by Chloe's mother. It's written and in beta checking (I'm on a very tight deadline with four chapters left and three weeks before bub is due to arrive!) so I hope to have it up in the next few days. Hopefully it will be a bit of a palate cleanser after Bryce in this chapter.
> 
> Thank you again to everyone who has read and commented on this fic. It's honestly your feedback and input that has kept it going <3


	21. Louise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last of the parent-led chapters, this time from Chloe's mother.

If she had to pick the moment that their marriage ended, Louise thought it would probably be the argument over the state Miss Pre-School Pageant. 

It should have been the kind of fight that they laughed about, afterwards. The kind of unimportant disagreement that neither of them was really invested in, other than their determination not to lose face, the kind of thing that could have been fixed the next morning when, after sleeping with their backs to one another, she wrapped her arms around Gavin where he was standing at the kitchen counter, drinking his first cappuccino for the day, nuzzled her nose against the collar of his shirt, and murmured something about feeling silly.

But it wasn’t just about the pageant. 

It wasn’t really about the pageant at all. 

It was about money, as a lot of their disagreements were, by that time. 

It was about what was best for Chloe, which he only cared about when he disagreed with her, and was otherwise entirely uninvested in.

It was about him not trusting her – ever, about anything – not trusting her opinion or that she knew what she was talking about, not accepting her experience and invalidating her feelings and making her feel small and stupid, the way her father had, when she was a little girl. 

It was about the inequality between them – Gavin’s choice, Louise wanted to remind him, every time – because she had given up her career in real estate at his insistence when Chloe was born, to stay at home and raise their daughter, to keep the house spotless and presentable, to visit the salon and go out to lunch dates with the wives and girlfriends of his colleagues and clients, to support _him_ , to do all of those things that his well-dressed executive assistant, Krysta, didn’t do to keep his career striding from strength to strength. 

It was about the fact that, despite that she spent all of that time in the gym at spin class and pilates to keep her petite frame slim and toned, and at the salon getting her hair done and her nails refreshed and skin treatments every other week, and even with a parade of jars and bottles of serums and creams lined up on her side of the bathroom counter, he rarely touched her any more, hardly even looked at her, working in his home office until well after she had fallen asleep in the new silk and lace negligee she had bought, hoping that he might notice. 

Mostly, it was about having the argument they couldn’t have, because it would require them both to admit what they couldn’t, until she finally acknowledged her suspicions, and he finally told the truth. That their marriage had been over for a long time – for both of them, in different ways – and, for different reasons, they didn’t want to try to put it back together. 

And so, as she did most things, anymore, Louise had pressed on, alone. 

She was a little daunted by everything that was involved – the outfits and the beauty routines, the talent and interview coaching, tanning and teeth whitening and _flippers_ to disguise the gap after Chloe lost one of her incisors biting into an apple – but the women who ran the stores and support businesses were always beaming and full of advice, handing over business cards and recommendations, phone numbers and helpful directions. Chloe liked trying on the dresses well enough, but squirmed in the salon chair and swung her legs disinterestedly while the talent coach spoke to the group of five and six year olds, staring out the window at the children running and squealing in the playground of the McDonalds across the street.

Gavin didn’t say anything about the dress bags that appeared in Chloe’s closet, or the pale honey highlights in her hair, or the way that she wrinkled her nose at dinner, the evening after her appointment at the cosmetic dentist’s office, running her tongue over her teeth to dislodge the lingering taste of silicone. He didn’t say anything at all, to either of them - no words of warning for her in order to set up his ‘I told you so’ moment for later, no encouragement for Chloe, no interest either way. 

If he was keeping an eye on the credit card statements, the way that Louise suspected he might – the way that she did – she could only assume that he mistook the charges from Pace Henley as a dance teacher or interview coach, and not an investigators office. 

“Is Dad going to come?” Chloe had asked from the back seat of the car when Louise hung up from booking her spray tan appointment for the day before the pageant. Louise looked up at her in the rear-view mirror, where she looped the pale nylon threads of her doll’s hair around her small fingers, winding them into curling tendrils like the girls on the pageant pamphlets wore. 

“Maybe, sweetheart.”

He hadn’t, and it wasn’t a surprise, but perhaps just as well. Chloe had forgotten the steps to her dance routine in the talent section halfway through the song, blinking at Louise as she had tried to prompt her from the front of the stage, her blue eyes wide and her cheeks flushing beneath the makeup and tropical tan. It had probably been overly hopeful to think that they might secure a ribbon on their first attempt, optimism bolstered by years of friends and teachers and strangers in the supermarket commenting on what a beautiful little girl Chloe was – her huge, dark blue eyes and sweet little face – and despite that she hadn’t been all that invested in the process, perhaps patient and tolerant at best, Chloe had looked up at all of the little girls on the stage with their sashes and crowns, and then at Louise, sitting beside her in the crowd, and lowered her head, biting her quivering lip.

Gavin hadn’t even asked how it went when he arrived home that evening, heading straight to his office from the front door, while Chloe and Louise sat at the dining table with Chinese takeaway, fall apart curls stiff with hairspray tumbling over Chloe’s shoulders and her face scrubbed pink and clean. 

When Louise had confronted him with the emails and the photographs and the text messages, a week or two later, more than anything else, Gavin had been angry at the idea that she had spent money from their joint account on a private investigator. 

As if he would have told her, if she had just asked. 

As if she hadn’t been asking for months at that stage, where he was and when he was coming home, if there was anything wrong, anything she should know about, what had happened to the deposit they had been saving to spend Christmas in Florida or why the hotel he had stayed in over the weekend for work had charged their account for two guests. As if they hadn’t fought over him missing Chloe’s pre-school theatre production, not even texting to let her know that he had been held up. As if she wouldn’t notice the charge from a private obstetricians’ office on their credit card, and God knew there was no chance, short of immaculate conception, that _she_ was pregnant, considering he could rarely bring himself to be in the house at the same time as her by that point.

Louise wasn’t sure how she had expected him to react – an apology, perhaps? A little bit of shame or contrition, maybe, for his behaviour and his betrayal? – but there had been none of that. 

He told her, plainly, that Krysta was ten weeks pregnant. A bouncing baby boy – they had confirmed via early blood testing – due ten days before Chloe would turn seven. 

He offered – or rather, explained, because he wasn’t interested in negotiating on the matter – that he would stay in a hotel until the following weekend. She could use that time to pack her things, and Chloe’s, mark out what furniture she wanted, and he would take a look when he got back. He would sign over the registration for the SUV to her, but the house, the boat, the timeshare – well, she could try to fight him for them, if she wanted to, but everything was in his name, they had lived off of his income for years, and only a judge with some bullshit feminist agenda would award her what he clearly owned. 

He wasn’t cruel, he insisted. He didn’t want to leave them destitute. 

But he didn’t love her, and he wouldn’t sacrifice the life he wanted to give Krysta and the baby for them. 

Then he packed a suitcase, and while Chloe was out in the yard, having a picnic with her doll, he got in his car, and left.

More than sad or angry, mostly, Louise felt stupid, and that didn’t change.

She felt stupid when tears trailed down her cheeks, entirely outside of her ability to control, as she explained to Chloe that they would be moving away, and that Daddy wouldn’t be coming with them. Chloe hadn’t been upset, just quiet, and had slept with her in the master bedroom that night, one arm wrapped around her doll, curled tightly against Louise’s back.

She felt stupid as she packed Chloe’s things into boxes and suitcases, as much as they would be able to fit in the back of the SUV and the modest-sized moving truck that Gavin had agreed to pay for out of their joint account, and had looked up at the pageant gown that Chloe had only worn once, silk and tulle in deep ocean blue to match her eyes, hanging in a plastic dry cleaning slip in her closet, where it would remain. 

She felt stupid when, at the divorce lawyer’s office, her credit card had declined, and Gerald, her allocated solicitor, had asked whether it was connected to a joint account that Gavin also had access to or control of. At her white-faced reaction, he had suggested, quietly, because Chloe was sitting in the waiting room a few feet away, drawing on a piece of printer paper with a pen that the receptionist had offered her, that she might consider liquidating any assets that she could and needed to, in the short term, while he worked on urgent correspondence to Gavin’s legal representation to seek a resolution to the matter. 

She felt stupid when they reached the first motel on their way to – well, she wasn’t even quite sure at that stage, somewhere different, somewhere warmer, some place where no one knew her, or how she had failed – the clerk at the front desk had asked her what name to book the room under, and she had hesitated, tears prickling behind her eyes as she gave her maiden name, Preston, and paid with cash from selling the pearl necklace Gavin had bought her for their first wedding anniversary at a pawn shop. 

And through the entire thing –   
\- hundreds of miles of highway,   
\- hours and hours in the back seat of the SUV,   
\- a dozen rotations of her 80’s and 90’s compilation CD’s – the Police, Scorpion, Billy Idol, Cyndi Lauper, Bonnie Tyler, the Cranberries, Bush, Gin Blossoms and Shania Twain,  
\- run down motels,   
\- and increasingly tense phone calls to Gerald as Gavin threw up roadblocks left and right, refusing to allow the removalists to leave with the dining table or the entertainment cabinet or any of the kitchen appliances she had marked, insisting that she cover the stamp duty fee to transfer ownership of the SUV to her name, resisting her requests that, if he wasn’t going to allow her back into their joint accounts until their lawyers agreed on terms of settlement, that he at least transfer the college fund that they had started when Chloe had been born into an account in their daughter’s name,  
\- Chloe had been quiet and compliant, biting down her questions when she could see the tension in her mother’s face or hear it in her voice, occupying herself in front of the television or on the bed with her doll when Louise needed a moment to herself in the dingy little motel bathroom to collect her emotions, eating every meal at truck stops and service stations, even when the food was dry and overheated or unbearably oily and her nose wrinkled as she chewed. 

She didn’t complain about being bored, or frightened, and didn’t even argue when Louise had returned from collecting fresh towels to replace the clearly used set in their motel room and found a little boy with chestnut hair at the window, grubby faced and grinning, walking a toy robot along the windowsill. He had scampered away when he saw her, like a startled animal, leaving Chloe peering after him through the blinds, her doll perched on the other side of the window pane.

“Can I go outside and play?” she had asked, a pleading glee in her smile the moment Louise had stepped into the room. 

“Not right now, Chloe,” Louise had told her after setting the towels down in the tiny, poorly lit bathroom, looking down at her phone on the bedside table to find two missed call notifications from Gerald. “OK?”

Chloe had just nodded, clambering onto the squeaky mattress and reaching for the television remote control. 

“I’m sorry, baby,” she whispered into Chloe’s hair later that night, as they lay beneath the starchy blanket at the Motel 6, the pneumatic hiss of brakes a constant chorus from the busy truck stop across the street. “I’m going to find us a new house, and you a new school, and you’ll make new friends, and I’ll get a new job…”

Chloe shifted sleepily, patting the blankets to make sure that her doll remained where she had left her, tucked in beneath the sheets with her head sharing the stiff, cold pillow. 

“And a new Daddy?”

Louise’s throat tightened, and she squeezed the little girl in her arms gently. 

“Maybe, sweetheart.”

~

Louise chose Evergreen because it shared the name of the trailer park where she had moved with her father after her mother had passed from breast cancer when she was eleven. The name didn’t conjure happy memories, exactly, but it was familiar, and as she pored over a map of the area, feeling exhausted and frayed and without a single idea what she should do, it stood out to her. 

The county was a pretty, leafy sprawl from the edge of the bay, which stretched from a commercial foreshore area with boating docks and beaches, to a small navy facility and industrial area along the water’s edge up the coast, and was bracketed with woods at its western-most edge, dense and green, rolling over hills and up rocky cliff faces that overlooked the web of suburban streets below. It was quaint enough to support small businesses like independent grocers, coffee shops, drug stores and hardware outlets, not yet large enough to attract big chains like Walplex, but sufficiently established to encompass wealthy, prosperous suburbs in the north west and a string of low-income areas studded with government subsidised housing estates clinging to the southern edge. The main street that cut through the middle of town housed a cinema – the Crestmont – a sheriff’s station, a post office and a courthouse. 

Louise thought it all seemed quiet and sweet. Perfect for her and Chloe to try to make a fresh start. 

By selling the jewellery that Gavin had gifted her over the years, as well as the china and crystal-wear that they had been gifted by his grandparents for their wedding, and through the grace of Gerald’s office agreeing to subtract their representation fees from whatever they were eventually able to achieve by way of divorce settlement, Louise was able to cover three nights in a motel just outside of the main commercial area of town. It was as far as she felt comfortable stretching the cash in her purse without leaving them sleeping in the SUV by the end of the week. She needed to keep aside enough to put down a rent deposit, and purchase some basic furniture. 

The rest she would figure out. 

She hoped.

“So, what brought you to our pretty little town?” the rental agent asked as she leaned against the kitchen counter, tapping away at the screen of her mobile phone, the question posed sweetly but entirely disinterestedly, as she allowed Louise and Chloe to roam the empty rental property unguided. She was wearing two shoes of the same style but different colours – one black and one brown – and although Louise had felt surprised and a little embarrassed for the other woman, when she noticed, she supposed that, with the heavily pregnant stomach blocking her view of her feet, she could be excused for the mistake; although now, she was beginning to suspected that carelessness was probably also a contributing factor. “You get a job here?”

Louise adjusted her handbag over her shoulder, looking down at the dirt in the window runners and the streaks on the glass from whatever rushed job the last tenants, or the estate agency, had arranged to tidy up the little old cottage for market. The carpets smelled as though the previous tenant had owned at least one, perhaps several cats, and there were scuff marks on the walls, some along the skirting boards where they might be expected from children throwing around toys and shoes, others at head and shoulder height, far more noticeable and harder to explain why they hadn’t been cleaned away. 

“We’re looking for a fresh start,” Louise offered politely, watching Chloe move cautiously along the hallway that ran the short length of the back of the home, peering into the small, empty rooms, her doll hugged to her chest. “I don’t have a job yet, but I’m looking, if you know anywhere that’s hiring?”

The other woman lifted her shoulder in a shrug, her eyes never leaving the screen of her phone.

“They haven’t hired a replacement for me, yet,” she said, one hand absently skimming over the curve of her stomach, as if more out of habit than any genuine care. “You know anything about real estate?”

Louise smiled.

“Actually, I do.”

After a brief meeting with the frazzled principal of the agency, she took the house and the job.

Before she had fallen pregnant, a year or two after they had been married, Louise had been the top selling real estate agent at the franchise that she worked for. She worked hard for the title, putting in long hours of networking and advertising, building connections and rapport, with most of her business coming through recommendations and referrals. For a girl from a trailer park who hadn’t attended college, picking up a receptionist role at the real estate agency straight out of high school, it made her feel proud, and when Gavin had suggested, with increasing insistence as the pregnancy progressed and she refused to slow down or reduce her workload, determined to sell the last few homes she had listed before their little bundle of joy arrived, and for no less than asking price, that she let go of her self-made career and focus on being a mother for a while, she had been conflicted. 

And then Chloe had arrived and nothing else in the world had seemed more important. 

It took a while, but she had taught herself to find fulfillment and enjoyment and a sense of achievement out of other things. It wasn’t the same as closing a difficult sale or witnessing the joy on the faces of her clients when she was able to confirm that she had secured them well above their listing price, but watching Chloe grow, supporting Gavin’s career as he strode from one promotion to the next, making friends and building connections and networks that supported those endeavours, it was different, but it could be rewarding.

Rental management was different to real estate sales, but she was confident that she could manage it. It would be like riding a bike – it would just take a little bit of time and practice.

The first day, the woman that she was replacing waddled over to Louise’s allocated desk with a stack of loose files and pieces of paper, and set them down in front of her.

“These are your showing appointments for today,” she said, plucking the piece of paper from the top of the pile, which was scratched with a name, address and time in untidy handwriting. “Looks like your first one is across town in twenty minutes.”

Louise wasn’t unused to unhelpful colleagues or attempts at sabotage – although she hadn’t been in the workplace for a few years, Gavin had taken up both activities with increasing dedication over time – and she had collected the keys for the apartment due to be viewed by prospective tenants, tapped the address in the southern suburbs into the navigation app on her phone, and set off without complaint. 

The building was a run down, privately owned apartment block, its shared facilities limited to a small parking lot and a grubby laundry room on the lowest floor. Several of the apartments were owned by the same landlord who held the title for the property she was scheduled to show, and when she checked the files later, back at the office, she found that half of the addresses were sitting empty with outstanding maintenance issues, the notes on record suggesting that the agent and the landlord had been arguing for some time over the lack of occupancy and the cost of the necessary repairs. 

Louise parked the SUV against the curb outside, checked her lipstick in the rear-view mirror, then headed up the path to the entrance, where a thin, brunette woman smoked a cigarette, leaning against the graffitied glass doors, while a little boy with an untidy mop of chestnut hair played with a robot action figure at her feet. 

“Hi! Amber?”

The woman turned to look at her, her gaze suspicious, as if she wasn’t waiting to meet with someone. Her face was pale and drawn, her clothes well-worn and her unruly dark hair tugged back into an untidy tail. The little boy at her feet looked up through his hair, desperately in need of a trim, with curious blue eyes. 

“Haley?”

Louise smiled brightly, offering her hand, which the woman looked at, but didn’t reach to shake. 

“Haley’s set to pop with a beautiful little baby any minute now! I’m her replacement, Louise.”

The woman still didn’t accept her handshake, but turned to flick her cigarette to the pavement and squash it out with the toe of one of her old leather boots, which Louise took as confirmation that she was the person she was meant to be meeting. It was far from where she had left off – selling two storey character homes, bungalows, holiday houses and condos to buyers with bright white smiles and deposits locked and loaded – but that was OK. This woman wasn’t so different from her, she reminded herself. Her little boy looked to be around Chloe’s age and, with her own life so recently and thoroughly uprooted, she was determined to give Amber the benefit of the doubt and trust that she was doing the best she could for herself and her child. Steadfastly ignoring the tiny, pin-prick bruises on the other woman’s thin, frail hands, Louise reached to open the door, smiling down at the little boy, who grinned back, hesitantly.

“Let’s go see if this is going to be your new home, huh?”

She regretted her own enthusiasm when, after wrestling with the uncooperative elevator for a few minutes and eventually reaching the upper floors, the apartment proved uninspiring, at best. Louise could only assume that Haley hadn’t bothered to inspect the property after the last tenants had left – she could think of no other excuse for the broken blinds hanging haphazardly in the windows, the stains on the carpets, the acrid smell of burnt plastic that seemed to seep from the walls, or the fact that someone had clearly been using the gas stove as both a makeshift cigarette lighter and an ashtray, the smoke detector removed from the roof overhead and nowhere to be seen. 

Although she felt compelled to apologise for the state of the apartment, Louise did her best to point out its positives – the windows in the kitchen faced in the perfect direction to catch the morning sunshine, the kitchen appliances were all gas and much cheaper to run, the second bedroom was the perfect size for a child and included a window looking out over the complex, so that if he made friends with the neighbour children, he would be able to see if they were outside playing and go join them. Amber seemed disinterested, her expression never shifting from vague disappointment as she asked about the weekly rent, the rules of the complex, whether there were any limits on visitors, and whether she qualified for any utility discounts on the basis that she was a single mother. Louise felt unprepared, unable to answer most of the questions immediately, and bit the inside of her lip while the other woman watched her with narrowed eyes as she jotted them down to follow up and confirm for her. 

“Have you been in Evergreen long?” Louise asked, conversationally, as Amber glanced around the kitchen, her thin arms in her oversized military jacket crossed over her chest defensively. 

The other woman shrugged.

“We’ve come and gone a couple of times,” she answered, noncommittally. “Looking to settle down.”

“Well, there are some great schools in the area,” Louise offered, watching the little boy gaze around the living room as if it were cavernous and not roughly the size of a generous closet, barely enough to house a small sofa and a television. “I’ve just moved here myself, and everyone is so friendly.” She focussed on maintaining her smile as Amber cast her a disbelieving look. “The elementary school over on Sixth Street seems great. We’ve just got my daughter enrolled.”

“The bus go by there?” Amber asked, apparently less concerned about what programs or curriculum the school offered and far more interested in how much effort it would take to send her son there. Louise smiled politely.

“Not on a single route from here, but there is Greenville, which is just a few blocks away. Your little one-“

“Justin.”

“Justin,” Louise maintained her smile, despite the other woman’s flat tone. “Could probably walk when he’s a little older.”

As if drawn by his name, the little boy appeared in the kitchen doorway, looking up at them both, the robot half-assembled into a fighter jet in his grubby hands. There were stains on the front of his sweater, and his shoes looked at least a size too small, but there was something familiar about his face, the inquisitive clearwater blue eyes, the hint of cheekiness in the way that the corner of his mouth ticked up toward a small smile. 

“I’m six,” he insisted, screwing up his nose a little in defiance. “I can already walk.”

Louise raised an eyebrow.

“I see that,” she answered, amused, while the boy’s mother peered out of the kitchen window – dirty, like every other window, Louise noted with frustration – at the street below. “What do you think of the apartment, Justin? I’m sure there are some other little boys here that you could make friends with.”

Suddenly shy at the direct question, the little boy shrugged, dropping his gaze to the robot toy in his hands, which he twisted and folded until it no longer resembled a robot at all, its shields transformed into wings and its head folded away to facilitate the pointed nose of a fighter jet. The boy seemed a little bit standoffish, but Louise thought she understood – Chloe could be shy, from time to time, around adults. Around children, she was normally confident and outspoken, never too timid to approach others and ask to join in their games, even if she hadn’t met them before or wasn’t familiar with the rules. Louise hoped that it would place her in good stead to make friends when she started elementary school. 

What she had said to Amber – that there were great schools in the area – wasn’t a lie, exactly. They definitely ranged in quality and, truthfully, Greenville, despite being in the catchment for the low-income area where the apartment block was located, was a relatively new and upmarket campus, close to the bay and offering specialised programs centred around marine biology and maritime operations. She would have liked to have sent Chloe there, but their address fell into the catchment for the older elementary school on the other side of town. It was a little shabby and run down, but the administration staff seemed enthusiastic when she had gone to submit Chloe’s enrolment documentation, and Louise had repeated the mantra that she had been telling herself since the morning they had pulled away from the house her daughter had spent her whole life in, Chloe twisting back in her seat to watch as the roses bushes and neatly trimmed trees and hedges in the yard faded into the distance. 

It would do, for now. 

At her left, Amber turned away from the window, and dug into the pocket of her jacket, tugging free a crumpled packet of cigarettes and, from beneath that, a small roll of bills, secured with an elastic band. Brandishing it between her thumb and forefinger, she raised an eyebrow.

“You take rent in cash?”

~

Montgomery de la Cruz was not the type of friend that Louise had in mind for Chloe.

She didn’t know the neighbours very well, and had been hesitant to introduce herself, hoping that their residence in the area might be temporary, the first few nights punctuated with distant sirens, shouting from the nearby houses, a wailing baby somewhere down the street, and the intermittent squeal of tyres a few blocks away, punctuating the heavy fall of rain that persisted through the first week they were there. The street reminded her of living with her father in the trailer park – the people around them were friendly enough, offering a smile or a wave of acknowledgement if they crossed paths outside of their homes – but they were not interested in getting to know anyone any more closely than that, preferring the privacy and deniability of being nothing more than passing acquaintances. 

Louise thought, in that context, that she should probably be concerned when, returning home from her second day of work at her new job, the woman from across the street had been putting out her trash on the curb for collection, and waved for her attention when she climbed from her SUV, her arms full of files of paperwork on her allocated rental properties, each one thick with outstanding maintenance costs and tenant issues that required her attention. 

“I just thought you should know,” the woman called, wrapping her threadbare dressing gown tighter around herself. “Your little girl, she’s been out in the street all day, playing with that de la Cruz kid.”

Fumbling to keep from dropping the heavy files as she slipped her purse onto her shoulder, Louise had shaken her head, unsure of the woman’s meaning.

“Oh, yes. Thank you,” she answered, haltingly, uncertain if she meant to refer to the fact that Chloe wasn’t in school, although she didn’t see how that was any of her neighbour’s business, or why she would be concerned – the neighbourhood was often crawling with kids during the day, either deliberately truanting or simply not attending school because their parents didn’t care enough to make them. “I wouldn’t normally leave her home alone. It’s just, there’s only one week left before Winter break, so she’s enrolled to start next semester.”

The woman blinked at her, confused, then blurted, bluntly,

“You should keep her away from that kid. He’s bad news.”

As Louise grasped desperately for a file that began to slip from her grasp, the woman turned and headed back inside, offering no further explanation or advice. The blustering wind swirled leaves from the tree in the front yard around her ankles, chilling her calves through her tights, and as she dug into her handbag for her house keys, she had tried to remember the name that the woman had mentioned. At the bottom of the driveway, half washed away by the afternoon’s rain showers, a lopsided hopscotch was drawn in chalk, surrounded by scribbles of flowers and insects, faces and animals. 

Inside, Chloe was sitting on the floor in front of the television, her quilt dragged in from her bed as a makeshift picnic blanket in the absence of a couch - whether he would release the lounge set from the den or agree to compensate her to pay for a new one remaining the subject of negotiation between Gerald, on her behalf, and Gavin’s lawyers. Her doll lay beside her, staring up at the ceiling with blue plastic eyes. 

“Hi, baby” Louise called as she hurried to the kitchen table to deposit the armload of files before she dropped them all over the floor, scattering loose paperwork everywhere. “What did you get up to today?”

Visible through the doorway to the living room, Chloe shrugged her shoulders. 

“We played hopscotch and skip rope, and drew on the driveway with chalk,” she answered, most of her attention on the early evening cartoons. “I made peanut butter sandwiches for lunch. And then we did skateboarding.”

Louise leaned against the doorframe, taking in Chloe’s wind-torn ponytail and the stains on the knees of her jeans and the cuffs of her pink sweater, presumably from crouching on the wet, dirty driveway. 

“Skateboarding?” she repeated, curious. “You don’t have a skateboard.”

Chloe looked over her shoulder at the front door and Louise realised that, in her hurry to put down the files before she dropped them, she hadn’t seen the small, second hand skateboard, propped against the wall beside the door frame.

“Monty gave it to me.”

“Oh,” Louise nodded slowly, wondering where exactly, between their two-storey bungalow where Chloe had wept over leaving behind her dollhouse and frilly party dresses and collection of baby dolls, and the aging little two-bedroom cottage on the hill the sloped down the back of Evergreen County, her little girl had become interested in skateboarding. “And who is Monty?”

Chloe was already looking back at the television, the bright colours of the cartoon shifting over her face. 

“He’s my friend.”

Those three words had become the source of more arguments than Louise could count, in the years that followed. 

Within a week, she had realised that Chloe’s new friend and the boy that the neighbour had warned her to keep away from her daughter were one and the same. It wasn’t difficult to see why the unsolicited caution had been offered. Only a few months older and a couple of inches taller than Chloe, the boy reminded Louise of a dog left to roam the streets by uncaring owners, allowed to largely fend for and feed and entertain itself, not vicious, but almost entirely without manners or boundaries, easily excited by encouragement or a kind word, eager for attention and interaction, boisterous and grubby and wild. He seemed to keep his own hours, never expected anywhere by anyone, and dressed as if no one checked to make sure what he was wearing was clean or warm enough for the weather outside, running around in threadbare t-shirts and tattered sneakers despite the winter morning chill and nights full of rain. He could be quiet and serious, but when he wasn’t his smiles were bright and sudden, his dark eyes full of mischief. 

Louise couldn’t remember the last time she had seen Chloe smile as freely as she did when she was with Monty.

Still, she hesitated. 

The boy was often carrying injuries – some cursory, the kinds of bumps and grazes that children collected through sports and roughhousing and carelessness – but others harder to explain away, black eyes, purple and blue imprints the size and shape of an adult hand, a man’s boot heel, or a leather belt. Monty seemed unbothered and unabashed, never attempting to hide or offer an explanation for the injuries. Even though it had been decades since she had lived in that trailer park, and watched her father drink himself to death with grief over her mother’s passing, and tried and failed to look after him the best that a teenage girl balancing school and puberty and a part time job and growing up without a mother could, she found herself falling into the habits she had learned there, and saw replicated in the neighbourhood around them. Her first obligation was to keep Chloe safe. She kept herself to herself, and minded her own business. 

Despite everything, at first, she found Monty difficult to dislike. He wasn’t what she had imagined, when she had promised Chloe new friends, that night as they lay together in the Motel 6, and she wasn’t certain that he was a good influence, exactly, but Chloe was clearly smitten with him, begging to be allowed to meet him out in the street where he waited with his skateboard, pleading that she be granted ten more minutes before coming in for dinner. When school recommenced after Winter break, they attended the same campus, and although Louise hoped that Chloe might make friends with some of the girls in her classes, the two of them were inseparable to the exclusion of all others. They walked or rode the bus to and from school together, laughing and murmuring in what Louise eventually realised was somewhat broken, rudimentary Spanish, and when she signed Chloe up for gymnastics lessons at the local recreation centre, hoping that she might make friends with some of the girls there, it had turned out that the centre hosted Little League as well, and they bussed together on weekend afternoons, her plan thwarted.

“I was thinking maybe we could book your birthday party at the fairy store in town,” Louise suggested as she made dinner one evening, her laptop and paperwork spread out over the small kitchen table, a small space cleared where Chloe sat at the other side. “They have a room painted like a grotto, and everyone can wear tiaras and wings, and they serve little butterfly cupcakes.”

“Mom,” Chloe had said flatly, looking up from the book she was reading for class. “Monty isn’t going to wear fairy wings, even if there’s cake.”

Hoping that she was not being so obvious that an almost eight-year-old could read her intent, Louise shrugged casually.

“I know. I thought maybe it would be nice to invite the girls from your class.”

Chloe had just raised an eyebrow at her.

Louise gave up that battle, but not the war. They made a deal that, if she wanted to keep skateboarding, Chloe would agree to attend ballet classes. She looked so lovely in her leotard and lace skirt, her plier and releve delicate and precise, even when she asked Monty to help her, and he stood beside her in jeans with holes in the knees and grazes on his arms, reaching up so that she could hold his hand for balance as she counted through each position. Still, as they grew accustomed to a regular income again and when, eventually, settlement had been reached and the divorce finalised, Chloe wasn’t interested in replacing all of those pretty party dresses she had left behind in her old life. When they went shopping for clothes, she picked out practical shorts and sweaters, jeans and sneakers, agreeing only to select a few dresses when Louise insisted and choosing heavy cotton styles with enough leg room that she could still skate and run and climb trees.

Chloe was a clever girl, but Louise worried about her, watching the two of them climb into the high limbs of the tree in the front yard to test the egg parachutes they had constructed for Science class, or seeing her balance waver as she rode her skateboard up and down the street, Monty following close behind on his own board, casual and comfortable as if he had been born on unsteady ground, coaching her on her stance as they went, or when she came home in the late afternoon with a jar full of tadpoles or insects, her face grubby and dirt on her clothes and in her hair. One weekend afternoon, Chloe had limped in through the front door, swatting Monty’s hands away when he tried to support her as she stepped gingerly over the threshold, the heels of her hands grazed and both shins torn and bleeding. Louise gasped, demanding an explanation, and Chloe had just raised her shoulder in a shrug, reaching to unbuckle the strap of her helmet.

“I just need more practice,” she said, flippantly, providing no details at all. 

Although she was slightly impressed that Monty had brought her home, and hadn’t slunk away with his tail between his legs, even when she turned an accusatory glare in his direction, Louise had suggested that his parents were probably expecting him home for dinner, and the boy had nodded obediently, telling Chloe to take it easy before slipping out. 

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go skating anymore,” Louise suggested later, dabbing at Chloe’s shins with an iodine-soaked cotton ball. Chloe, sitting on the edge of the bathtub, rolled her eyes.

“I fell one time,” she protested, forcing back a wince at the sting of the antiseptic. Louise shook her head, clicking her tongue. 

“What is your ballet instructor going to think if you keep coming to class covered in bruises and gravel rash?”

Chloe shrugged her shoulders casually, and looked at her as she answered.

“Adults don’t care about that stuff.”

Louise got the impression that Chloe was speaking not of grazed shins from skate park tumbles, but rather alluding to black eyes and broken collarbones, and didn’t comment any further.

It was none of their business. 

As if to spite her, Chloe seemed steadfastly determined to _make_ that boy her business when, two days later, as they drove to ballet practice on a wet and overcast Tuesday afternoon, she had turned a glance out of the car window as they slowed to approach an intersection, and screamed.

“ _Mom!_ ”

Louise’s heart leapt into her throat, her foot stomping the brake pedal to the floor, and before she could turn to ask what was wrong, Chloe was out of the car, slamming the door behind her as she burst into the driving rain, a streak of pale pink and nude lace. Panicking, Louise looked around wildly to check for other traffic before putting the SUV into reverse, and yanking the wheel around to follow Chloe down the side street she had bolted for. She didn’t have to go far. Only a few yards from where she had abandoned the car, in the deep, dirty puddle collecting at the mouth of a blocked stormwater drain, three teenagers were shoving and kicking what looked through the fogged windscreen to be roughly the size and shape of a half-drowned dog. 

Without hesitating, her ballet slippers disappearing ankle-deep in the muddy water, Chloe barrelled into the fray and slammed into one of the boys, twice her size, sending him staggering into one of his companions. As the boy rounded on her, fist raised before he fully registered that he had been attacked by a little girl in a ballet skirt, Louise slammed her hand down on the car horn, startling the group. Chloe didn’t even flinch at the sound, rain streaming down her face, soaking her leotard and slicking the fine, loose strands not quite long enough to incorporate into her bun to her soaked skin as she stared down the older boy. The boy, his mouth, nose and cheek red and purple with fresh bruises as if he had been hit across the face by something unexpected and unforgiving, seemed almost to recognise Chloe, but shook the moment off, gesturing to his companions. The three teenagers fled, jumping onto bikes abandoned on the footpath, while Chloe glared after them and Monty, wide-eyed and bloody-faced, sat in the puddle at her feet. 

“Chloe!” Louise snapped, rolling down the window, her heart thundering with anxious adrenaline. “You get in this car, right now!”

Chloe looked over her shoulder to acknowledge the instruction, but didn’t move immediately to obey, bending to offer Monty her hand. The boy was soaked through with muddy water, his t-shirt torn and his face running with dirt, blood, and rain-water. 

“Chloe-“

“I can’t go to class like this,” Chloe protested, her hand still clasping the boy’s as she turned toward the car. “We should all go home, or we’ll both get sick.”

Louise bit the inside of her lip. Instinctively, she knew that it was the right thing to do, but underneath, the hesitation that had lingered since the night that the neighbour had called out her warning across the street whispered that she needed to put her foot down. Chloe was a strong, clever, beautiful little girl, she would achieve amazing things in her life, anything she wanted and had the dedication to put her mind to, and this grubby, bruised, freckled little ragamuffin of a boy might be her unravelling. Against her better judgement, Louise waved for them to get in. Smiling, Chloe opened the door, and waited until Monty got in ahead of her, sliding across the back seat, before she climbed in after him. Louise watched them both buckling their seatbelts, her pulse ticking unevenly with anxious hesitation. 

“No more getting my daughter into fights, young man,” she instructed, her voice still trembling with the aftershocks of worry, even as she had to acknowledge that, in this instance, and probably in most cases, Chloe was so head-strong that there would be no stopping her. She looked at the boy in the rear-view mirror. “Understand?”

Monty offered her a bloody smile. 

“Sure thing, Ms. P.”

He didn’t exactly break that promise, but he didn’t exactly keep it, either.

As they grew, Chloe into a petite and lovely young woman, her smile reserved but pretty, her blue eyes warm and curious, and Monty into, for all intents and purposes, exactly the sort of unpredictably violent brute that people expected him to be, they disagreed, from time to time, and made other friends as they entered high school, Chloe joining the cheerleading squad and Monty the football team, but they were no less protective of one another, perhaps more guarded of their connection, but no less inextricably entwined than they had been since they were six. 

While Monty’s reputation for anger and violence grew, and Chloe settled into the role of responsible older sister for Amelia, sometimes, their roles were so totally reversed that Louise wondered if that little girl standing ankle-deep in murky water, her pretty lace ballet skirt splattered with mud and her fists clenched at her sides, was really Monty’s doing, or if it was some natural part of her, perhaps a throwback gene replicating Louise’s own father’s volatile temper, and whether Monty’s capacity to behave in a measured and responsible manner, from time to time, was something he had always been capable of, but was rarely given the opportunity to demonstrate.

Over the years, she had both on display, first hand.

When the kids were ten, and a girl from her gymnastics class had pushed Chloe on the playground outside of the recreation centre, and when Chloe turned around and punched her in the chin in retaliation, they had descended into a flurry of flying limbs and clawing nails, parents and teachers rushing toward the sudden noise of kids cheering for the altercation. Monty hadn’t tried to get involved, despite his close proximity, but he had reached out and snatched one of the girl’s friends who ran at Chloe from behind with her fist raised, his unexpected grasp on the back of her jacket halting her so suddenly that she slipped in the playground sand and landed on her back before she could join the melee. 

When they were thirteen, and Louise would come home from work to find them at the kitchen table, two or three times a week, Chloe slumped forward with her head resting on her arm, attempting to negotiate with Monty, _two more formulas, then we go to the skate park? C’mon, it’s going to be dark soon!_ while the boy chewed his lip with concentration, his head down as he consulted Chloe’s study notes and the calculator by his hand. 

When she came home from a late night at the office, expecting to find Chloe and Amelia at the dinner table, and instead opened the front door to a barrage of punk music from the kitchen, and found Monty and Amelia instead, apparently conducting an impromptu air guitar competition to the racing, erratic guitar riffs of NOFX, an empty, extra-large takeaway cup of brown sugar boba tea empty on the kitchen table, and the stove steaming and bubbling with a pot of mac and cheese, stirred through with steamed greens, and the chicken she had left in the fridge to be reheated sizzling in a mixture of spices. 

Louise cleared her throat, raising an eyebrow when Monty noticed her first and, as a seventeen-year-old boy caught in the middle of an air guitar re-enactment with an eight-year-old girl might be expected to do, immediately halted his bass solo and flushed a little pink beneath his freckles as he reached to pause the song blasting from his phone on the kitchen counter. 

“Mom,” Amelia had grinned breathlessly, her cheeks ruddy and her eyes bright with sugar from the sweet treat she could only assume Monty had bought her. “Can Monty stay for dinner?”

Louise eyed the entirely repurposed meal cooking on the stovetop.

“I’m sure Monty’s parents are expecting him home for dinner, sweetheart,” she answered, pointedly, looking at the boy. “Where’s Chloe?”

Amelia pouted, sliding into one of the chairs at the kitchen table and reaching for the plastic cup to attempt to slurp what was left of the sugary residue from the bottom.

“She got stuck at work, so Monty picked me up from ballet.”

The boy didn’t need to be told any more explicitly – he grabbed his phone from the kitchen counter, tucking it into the pocket of his jeans as he collected his backpack from where it was propped against the cabinets in the corner of the kitchen. As he headed for the door, he reached out to ruffle Amelia’s hair, winking when she screwed up her nose at him.

“See ya, squirt.”

Pressing down her frustration, Louise followed him to the door, lingering there when the boy stepped outside and headed for his Jeep, which she hadn’t noticed in the dark, parked against the curb across the street. 

“Monty,” Louise said, and the boy paused, turning to face her. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t visit when there are no adults home.”

Monty smiled at her, and she thought of the little boy with the bloody smile, rainwater dripping from his hair and mud spattering his clothes, in the back seat of her car.

“Sure thing, Ms. P,” he agreed and turned to leave, but hesitated, his cheek dimpling, that old, familiar mischief sparking in his dark eyes. “So, next time you and Chloe gotta work, should I just leave Amelia out on the lawn, or…?” He waved a hand, his tone tauntingly curious. “I could bring her for dinner at my place? My dad’s usually pretty blind by this time of night, he wouldn’t notice an extra kid at the table.”

Clenching her jaw, Louise smiled tightly and reached to close the door.

“Goodnight, Monty.”

He smirked, nodding.

“Night, Ms. P.”

~

Although her job at the real estate agency was intended it to be a stopgap – something that would do, for now – like so many other things, the house, the cheap kit furniture that she bought to get them by in the immediate term, the SUV, which she had planned to trade in for an upgrade as soon as she could afford it but never quite had the finances to do so, every scant amount she managed to save toward it eaten up by emergency repairs when one part or another failed; Louise stayed at the real estate agency, and by the time she was nearing her ten year anniversary with the company, was supervising all rental portfolios, with two junior property managers reporting to her. It wasn’t a position that was well paid or prestigious, there were no commissions, like when she had been in sales, but she found it rewarding. 

Or, she tried to.

Sometimes, over the years, it was the only constant in her life, the only thing that she had to cling to that was her own, that she had achieved for herself, and it might have been small and unimpressive, but she was accustomed to that, and would make do.

A little over a year after they had arrived in Evergreen County, frustrated that all of those plans that she had made for temporary measures were still in place, were still all she could afford and the best that she could provide for Chloe, Louise had begun to feel lonely. For all of the many months that Gavin had dragged out the divorce settlement, entering another relationship, even considering connecting with another human being on that level, had frightened her. Everything that had gone wrong in her marriage felt not only avoidable, but of her own making. She should have been stronger, should have tried harder, should have been more agreeable – or less agreeable, perhaps, so that Gavin wouldn’t have gotten the impression that he could walk all over her, disregard her when he had no further use for her, and try to strip every remaining shred of pride and self-worth from her in the process. She should have been more careful, should have thought of Chloe more, and what was best for her, should have protected her more thoroughly than she did, because she worried that, although she stopped asking about her father not long after they had arrived in Evergreen, Chloe might think that what had happened had been her fault, and she didn’t know how to explain that it wasn’t. 

It was hers.

One of the women from the real estate office, a middle-aged, twice divorced mother of two, had been encouraging her to come along to the singles mixer held at the community centre a couple of times a month. While Louise couldn’t imagine how a town that size could possibly support such frequent events – unless it was some sort of cover for an underground swingers’ group, perhaps – she eventually gave in and agreed to go along one Friday evening. Objectively, she hadn’t made as many connections as she hoped she might since arriving in town, her interactions with the other mothers at Chloe’s school stifled by her often long and unpredictable working hours and the neighbours as unwilling to involve themselves in one another’s lives as they had always been. If she met a few people that she could wave to in the street, maybe catch up with for coffee from time to time, then perhaps she would start to feel like herself again.

Chloe sat on the couch with a bowl of popcorn, watching _Aladdin_ , while she got ready.

“No answering the door and no visitors, OK?” Louise reminded her from the bathroom as she checked her hair one last time, adding another spritz of perfume to her wrists. The dress was one of the last she had remaining from her old life, the rest sold online to cover the costs of Chloe’s school books and the filling she had needed at her last dentist appointment. It felt a little over the top, but she couldn’t come up with a good excuse not to wear it, and honestly, was simply relieved that it still fit. 

“Alright, Mom,” Chloe sighed, and although the agreement came quickly enough that Louise thought that she probably shouldn’t be surprised if she found one of Monty’s sweaters on the couch in the morning, or evidence of more snack packets than Chloe could have possibly worked her way through by herself secreted in the bottom of the trash can in the kitchen, or the boy himself, sleeping on the floor in Chloe’s bedroom with her dressing gown draped over him as a makeshift blanket, she let it go, focussing instead on trying to settle her anxiously rattling nerves.

Louise thought that, the moment she stepped through the door, the room populated by mostly middle-aged men and women, chatting and drinking quietly, in a way that reminded her almost more of a wake than any kind of mixer she had ever been to, he must have seen her uncertainty from the other side of the room. The colleague she had arrived with stepped away almost immediately to chat to some people she knew, leaving Louise feeling desperately exposed, and she had gulped from the glass of wine that she purchased at the bar, vaguely aware of the man – dressed in dark trousers and a blue shirt that matched his eyes – making his way casually around the perimeter of the room toward her. 

“First time?” he asked, with a knowing smile, when he reached where she was standing on her own at the corner of the bar. Louise lowered her gaze to her almost empty drink, feeling a warm blush rising in her cheeks. Pinned to the breast pocket of his shirt was an engraved local council name badge, as if he had come straight from work.

_Michael Radic_   
_Town Planning_

Louise tucked a loose lock of hair behind her ear nervously.

“Is it that obvious?”

He grinned, raising his shoulder in a shrug.

“I can introduce you around, if you like?” he offered, waiting until she met his gaze to lift his chin toward the bar. “Or I could buy you another drink?”

She should have taken him up on the first suggestion. 

Or maybe just a flat ‘no’ would have been better. 

What she did was accept his offer to buy her another drink, and then bought the next round after that, and then lost track shortly afterwards of who was paying, up until they left the community centre with a bottle of wine and headed back to his apartment. He lived in a condo near the bay, a secure complex with a shared pool and hot tub and sauna, an entertaining area on the roof. And that should have been strange, later, when the relationship was serious enough that they began talking about moving in together, and he suggested that he should move in with her and Chloe and rent his apartment out. It was a definite step down, their little rental cottage on the sloping hill in the south of town, but at the time, Louise reasoned that the apartment was only one bed and one bath – it wasn’t big enough for the three of them – and didn’t think much of the fact that the rental income went into his bank account while she paid the monthly rent for the cottage from hers. 

It was easy to disregard those things, when Radic sent pretty bunches of flowers to the office for her – the first arriving the very next morning after they had met, with a handwritten card attached, describing how nice it had been to meet her and inviting her to dinner the following week. It was hard not to be swept up, when the other women at the office gushed over his romantic gestures, his stable job, his trim build and thick, dark hair and blue eyes, always gleaming with just a hint of rascality. It didn’t feel like things were moving quickly, when he swept aside every hesitation. He was sweet and kind to Chloe, asking her about school and her gymnastics and ballet classes. He had no reservations about the quaint little rental where they lived or the rundown neighbourhood it stood in, no judgements when she explained what had ended her previous marriage, her face burning with shame. Radic was a divorcee himself, and although he had never had kids, he loved the idea of them, and despite that Chloe was older than she had ever imagined she would have had as an age gap between children, the idea that he _wanted_ babies, and with her, after Gavin had been steadfastly against the idea of any more than one, had filled her with joy.

All of those things – the surprise gifts, the anniversary dinners, the offhanded compliments, the way he introduced her to his friends and colleagues – made it easy to ignore the other things. 

And maybe, a decade of marriage to Gavin, and even longer living with her father in a backwater trailer park before that, made it easy, too.

He asked her where she had been and who she had seen when she got in late from work because he was concerned about her and wanted her to be safe, especially when she was inspecting and showing properties in the low-income areas of town.

He commented unprompted on what she wore and how she styled her hair because he wanted her to do well in her career, to reflect well on herself and on him and their relationship, as a presentable and professional woman who took her job seriously.

He got frustrated when she asked him if anything was wrong, or if his meetings had run late at the office, or if his secretary had passed on her phone messages that day, because his job was busy and demanding, because he was being considered for a promotion, because that promotion was awarded to someone else who didn’t deserve it as much as he did, because he worked his ass off in that place and no one goddamn appreciated it. 

When he had proposed, almost two years after they had met, they had been teetering on the edge of reconsidering if they had a future together, and when he had presented that pear cut diamond, and then turned to Chloe, and offered her a pretty little opal ring, asking for her permission to marry her mother, Louise’s heart had melted all over again. Radic was attentive and involved throughout the wedding planning, and it didn’t even matter that most of the invitees were his friends and colleagues, or that he didn’t see the point in offering to pay for her grandparents to fly out from Florida to attend when they could put that money toward an open bar for their guests, or that the song he chose for their first dance, as a surprise to her, was _To Be With You_ by Mr Big, which had prompted many of the attendees to glance at each other from the edge of the dancefloor as they considered the implications of the lyrics. Chloe looked sweet as sugar in her pale pink flower-girl dress, the opal ring gleaming from her right hand, and everything felt perfect.

Although Chloe would cast him uncomfortable glances when he commented on Louise’s cooking or her outfit or how much she had spent on the weekly groceries, the only person who expressed open dislike for Radic was Monty, and the feeling was mutual.

“That boy snuck in again last night.”

Louise turned from the stove where she was stirring poached eggs, her first attempt steaming in the trash can beneath the sink, the yolks broken as a result of her poor technique and lack of practice, and not worth the look Radic would cast her if she served them to him. She cradled the curve of her eight-month-pregnant stomach with her spare hand.

“They’re just friends,” she said, calmly, although she was careful not to allow her tone to slip toward anything that might have been interpreted as dismissive. “With all the yelling that comes from that side of the fence, I think he has it pretty rough over there, sometimes.”

Radic snorted, shaking his head where he slid into a seat on the opposite side of the kitchen table, his face shadowed with stubble and his eyes a little red from going out for after-work drinks with the guys from the office the night before.

“So that makes him our problem?” he retorted, reaching for the newspaper, which she had gone out to collect earlier that morning, rescuing it from the early morning dew before the pages started to stick together, which always frustrated him. “You know he sleeps in the bed with her?” 

Louise bit the inside of her lip. She had noticed that, on the rare occasion when Monty was still asleep and hadn’t slipped out through the window, the way she assumed he snuck in, before she cracked open the door to check on Chloe in the morning, that they were sometimes tucked underneath the covers together. They were nine years old. She considered it sort of sweet. 

Radic flicked open the newspaper, grunting with irritation when the corners stuck slightly. 

“You can raise your kid however you like, but my daughter-“ he cast a pointed look at her pregnant stomach. “-isn’t going to act like a little tramp.”

Louise clenched her jaw and said nothing.

Stress and fighting wasn’t good for the baby.

Radic had a lot of opinions about what was and wasn’t good for the baby, and for her, and for Chloe. Sometimes, it seemed like simple concern. Others, she couldn’t quite ignore that, while Chloe only ever seemed to do things that were bad for her – or for him – much like Louise herself did, most of his opinions about Amelia and how she should be raised were protective, if a little overly so. Louise tried to rationalise it as a natural reaction to being a biological father to one daughter and step-father to the other. She viewed both of her girls equally, but she couldn’t expect him to do the same, not when Gavin hadn’t so much as called Chloe for her birthday since they had left when she was six. And as the girls grew and the years passed, things began to feel familiar, which should have been a comfort, a sign that they were growing into a family. But secretly, when she lay in bed alone at night when he had to work late or entertain contractors and clients offering funding for town projects for the night or the weekend, Louise worried that the reason that it felt routine and familiar was because it was a pattern she knew well – one that she had watched her parents fall into, and had replicated herself with Gavin. 

Because she had let herself make all of the same mistakes again. And she was terrified, even as the arguments became more frequent, and Radic’s criticisms turned more often from her to Chloe, and they started to fight over all of the same things that she and Gavin had disagreed on – money, commitment, obligations, how to raise their daughters – that she had learned nothing at all from any of it. That she was just as stupid as she had felt, packing up the tiny piece her life and her little girl – the only things that Gavin agreed to let her have – just to fall into the same trap all over again somewhere new.

By the time Amelia was almost nine and Chloe only a week away from seventeen, Louise felt like she was unravelling. Radic was headed away for the weekend – a trip to catch a baseball game with some of the guys from work – and it was a relief, because she felt as though she had been on the verge of tears for weeks, her fragile resolve in tatters and barely clinging by a single thread. In an effort to stay out of his way, she spent the morning weeding the small garden bed she had panted around the foot of the tree at the front of the house, tending to the little colourful petunias and daisies. Chloe seemed to have the same idea, planning a hike out to the waterhole in the woods by the lookout point. Monty waited for her on the curb, hands in his pockets, watching guardedly as Radic packed his car for the weekend away, lifting his head from where he was bent over the trunk when Chloe paused by the front door to check her boots, stored on the shoe rack outside, for spiders before pulling them on. 

“You planning on hiking or handing out lap dances in those shorts?” Radic asked, loudly enough for all of them, and any nearby neighbour who might have been outside, to hear. 

Cheeks flushing red, Chloe returned her boots to the shoe rack without a word and went back inside. After a moment, Radic followed to retrieve the rest of his luggage. 

Sitting on her knees at the base of the tree, Louise shook the dirt from her gardening gloves to hide the frayed trembling in her hands, and bit the inside of her lip when Monty crouched down opposite her, on the far side of the garden bed. 

“I don’t know what you plan to do,” the boy said, reaching down to pluck a tiny weed from the freshly turned dirt. “And I get it. Letting him talk to _you_ that way. It’s different.” He flicked the weed away, rubbing the dirt between his fingers as he looked up at her. “Chloe asked me to stay out of it. But if I hear him talk to her like that again, I’m going to break his fucking teeth.”

Louise blinked, looked down at the small, bright blooms between them, and nodded.

“I know,” she murmured, and took a breath to steady her voice before insisting, “I know.”

Monty looked at her for a moment, his expression unreadable, then nodded back.

“OK,” the boy said, and straightened, smiling reassuringly when Chloe reappeared at the front door, dressed in a pair of jeans, her cheeks still pink beneath the fall of her hair as she bent to retrieve her boots. 

Louise wished she could have been the strong one – the one to end it because it was the right thing to do – and in a way, she supposed that was how it happened. Although at the time, she felt like she had no other option, like she wasn’t really making the strong and right choice, because what else could she do, when her colleagues took her out for lunch to celebrate her ten-year anniversary at the agency, and Radic had been sitting in the front window of the restaurant, leaning over the table to kiss another woman?

Humiliated and trembling, she left her colleagues standing in the carpark, stunned and uncertain and silent, and had walked quietly inside. Radic apparently assumed that she was the waitress, because he didn’t acknowledge her right away, not when she approached the table, or when the pretty, auburn haired woman sitting across from him glanced up at her, confused. It was only when she reached down to place her wedding rings on his bread plate that he looked up and noticed her at all, his expression registering surprise, but not shame. 

“I’d like a divorce,” she told him, quietly, and then walked out, past the table decorated with balloons exclaiming _congratulations!_ , and the bright bunch of flowers that her colleagues had arranged to have delivered ahead of the reservation for her. 

Although a significant part of her would have liked to have driven home and curled up into a ball beneath the covers to berate herself for doing this again – for letting Chloe down, once more, and for involving Amelia, this time – she had inspections scheduled into the afternoon, and while she didn’t feel much like eating the lunch that the team had planned for her, or anything at all, she was grateful for the distraction. The team were very understanding, offering for her to take all the time off she needed, recommending lawyers and counsellors, even the colleague who had encouraged her to attend the singles mixer in the first place, a decade earlier, had made the practical offer of ordering for her and dropping the boxed meal to her house later. A small part of her felt a hint of satisfaction at the thought of her team sitting across the restaurant from Radic and his date, glaring openly and angrily, until he had no other option but to leave, as she climbed into the SUV and headed for her next appointment at the southern end of town.

The building was small, housing only six apartments, four on the bottom floor and two up a steep flight of stairs. The agency managed all six, but the tenancy agreements all ran on separate rotations, leaving her only one due for inspection that afternoon. She tucked her file beneath her arm and her phone into her purse, unsurprised, she supposed, that Radic hadn’t tried to call or text her at all, and climbed from the car. She would need to contact Chloe, to let her know what had happened, before she got home from school, she thought, as she climbed the tall flight of stairs. Maybe suggest that she visit one of her friends’ houses, or spend the afternoon with her boyfriend, just in case. Or perhaps Louise should go by and collect her and Amelia, to explain to them in person. Reaching the landing at the top of the staircase, she leaned down to straighten the creases in her skirt, and then knocked on the apartment door. 

It was a thought for later.

“Hi,” Louise smiled at the boy who answered, and before she could stop herself, like a knee-jerk reaction to the aqua-blue Liberty High varsity jacket he was wearing. “Shouldn’t you be in school?”

The boy licked his lower lip anxiously. 

“Uh, yeah. My ma, she’s not feeling well,” he stepped aside for her to enter, motioning toward the living space, where a dark-haired woman was lying on the sofa beneath a blanket, her skin pale and clammy and her closed eyelids twitching, as if she were having a bad dream. The boy, Louise guessed sixteen, maybe seventeen at most, shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “We didn’t want to miss the appointment, though.”

Louise wondered if there was something wrong with her, that such a small, polite consideration made her want to cry. 

“I appreciate that,” she said softly, careful not to wake the fitfully sleeping woman, as she slipped an inspection form from the file beneath her arm. The boy waited patiently, if not a little awkwardly. The apartment was tidy in the way that a teenage boy might be expected to manage, not necessarily clean, condensation marks on the interior of the windows, the carpet a little grubby with food crumbs and dirt from the soles of their shoes, but it was far from the worst she had seen, and it was clear that he had made an effort to make the little space that he and his mother occupied presentable before she had arrived. 

Louise glanced at him, and cocked her chin. 

“Have we met before?” Louise asked, eyeing the roaring Tiger embroidered on his jacket again. He looked familiar, but she couldn’t place exactly where from. The obvious answer was that he was a school-mate of Chloe’s, but she hadn’t made it to many of Chloe’s cheerleading appearances, Radic always decidedly disinterested at best, and critical of cheerleading as a sport at worst. 

“I don’t think so,” the boy said quickly, a little defensively, shaking his head. He seemed uncomfortable with the idea that she might have known him from somewhere, concerned by what the circumstances might have been, and Louise didn’t push it, stepping past him toward the kitchen. 

The rest of the apartment followed much the same pattern of tidiness as the living space, everything put away neatly but some of the deeper cleaning – grime on the stove top, soap scum on the shower screen, toothpaste residue in the basin, the grout on the tiled floor below the toilet bowl – a little neglected. It was nothing too concerning, and she didn’t bother making a note of it as she ticked her way through the form. Despite being unwilling to spend a single cent that wasn’t absolutely essential toward the maintenance of the apartments in the building, the owner could be incredibly harsh about tenant upkeep, and she was neither prepared to have that argument with them, or put the boy and his mother in any position that threatened the security of their accommodation. As she moved around the small space, the boy stood close by the couch, glancing down at the woman worriedly, his attempt at a casual stance doing little to obscure the protectiveness in his posture. Louise glanced at him, from time to time, and finally, as she ticked off the inspection items for the master bedroom, turned back to him suddenly, startling him as she pointed her pen in his direction. 

“No, I _do_ know you,” Louise realised, and the boy blanched uncertainly, looking at her with worried blue eyes, even as she grinned. “You’re the little boy with the robot toy.” She scoured her memory, pressing her lips together until she got it. “Justin.”

He blinked at her, surprised, and then a slow smile brightened his face.

“Oh, yeah,” he muttered, a little embarrassed as he scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Yeah, you’re right. That was me.”

Louise ticked the last few items off on the inspection form, and followed his concerned glance toward his mother, lying on the couch.

“I’m glad to see you and your mom are still looking out for one another,” she told him, smiling when he glanced at her, and gesturing around the apartment. “The place looks great. Nothing to report.”

He looked surprised, and a little sceptical, but nodded gratefully. 

She didn’t tell him that, after ten years, she had finally placed the little boy with the blue eyes and the grubby face and the transforming robot, and that she wasn’t referring to the first rental viewing she had ever conducted, where she had been too frazzled and anxious to make the connection, but to the boy who had entertained Chloe through the window of their room at the Motel 6 when she had desperately needed a reason to smile. 

~

It should have been a red flag that Radic had been impressed with the way that Bryce Walker courted Chloe. 

Louise realised, by that point, that recognising red flags was not her forte. 

It should have been obvious to her, the way that every single move the boy made was deployed as if he had lifted it directly from Radic’s playbook, and Gavin’s before him, and her own father’s before that. The flowers, the compliments, the lavished attention and affection, the dinners and gifts. He was perfectly charming, the sweet boy next door, despite the wealth and affluence of his family, and it should have frightened her how drawn in Chloe was by all of that. 

Instead, she had smiled at her daughter across the kitchen table the morning after Bryce had taken her out dancing to celebrate their anniversary, and had dropped Chloe home the following morning in time for breakfast, where she fidgeted with her spoon but barely ate any of her honeyed oats, reaching to tuck her hair behind her ear, revealing a brand-new pair of delicate white gold floral earrings. 

It had been a few months since her second divorce had settled – a thankfully short affair, compared to Gavin’s stubborn battle over every cent, Radic agreeing that they would each take only what they had brought into the relationship and signing away primary custody of Amelia with no argument and minimal visitation obligations, to her great relief. While Louise certainly didn’t feel ready to get back amongst the single mixers with her insistent colleague, she had noticed the interested gaze and polite smile aimed her way by a dark haired, stocky, middle aged man who wore a bailiff’s uniform when they crossed paths purchasing their morning coffee, and felt like, maybe, romance wasn’t dead after all.

“How does he make you feel?” she asked, on a whim but genuinely interested, smiling when Chloe glanced up at her, surprised. “Bryce, I mean.”

Chloe licked her lower lip, hesitating. She parted her lips to answer, then seemed to reconsider, and eventually settled on,

“Dizzy.”

Louise wished she had understood what she meant, then. 

Before that boy had seen every weakness that Louise had learned and had instilled in her daughter, that trust and self-doubt and desire to please bred over generations, and had taken advantage of it in the worst possible way. Before that place called the clubhouse, or the polaroids, or the trial. Before Chloe had sat mere feet from him in the witness stand, the boy watching her from behind glasses Louise had never seen him wear before, staring at her as the lawyer pressed her to confirm that she had not consented to that hideous thing that he had done to her little girl, that he had grinned and taken happy snaps of to share with his buddies. Before Chloe’s resolve had shattered, and she had given in to the man she loved, as her mother had, time and time again, and taken the blame for something that was not her fault. 

Chloe was quiet on the drive home afterwards, twisting her hands in her lap in the passenger seat, and had headed directly to the bathroom, running the shower so long that Louise could only guess that she forced herself out from beneath the spray once the hot water ran out. Louise gave her space, waiting until dinner time to knock and crack the door of her bedroom open. Chloe lay on her covers in her pyjamas, her damp hair splayed across her pillow as she curled tightly on her side with her back to the door and wept. Heartbroken, Louise crossed the room quietly to sit on the edge of her mattress and reached to place a comforting hand on her back. 

“It’s OK, baby,” she whispered, surprised when Chloe rolled over and reached for her, half curling in her lap, her face pressed into her stomach as her shoulders shook with sobs. “Oh, sweetheart. It’s OK. You did your best.”

Chloe shook her head, her voice half muffled in Louise’s blouse.

“I feel so stupid,” she murmured between sobs, her voice thick with shame and humiliation that broke Louise’s heart. Gripping her daughter tightly to her, she leaned down and pressed a kiss to the back of her head.

“I know, baby,” she whispered into her hair. “I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first of the lasts! It's a little bit bittersweet, especially because, of all the chapters, the ones I have really enjoyed imagining and writing the most have been the parent chapters - finding ways to intertwine these characters into one another's canon lives has been challenging but a lot of fun.
> 
> We don't get very much of Chloe's mother in canon - only two scenes and one spoken line, so I hope that the characterisation that I've gone with suits the character and Chloe. I had hoped to provide some background to how a smart and strong girl like Chloe finds herself victim to a relationship with a boy like Bryce. 
> 
> Thank you to comfortwrite28 for the beta checking! I think this is the longest chapter in the fic and will likely stay that way, I don't expect any others to break its record, so I'm very grateful to you persevering through it, despite all of the horrible men on display here! Anyone who is here as a fan of Justin or Monty, I would very much recommend checking out [ 28's work ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/comfortwriter28/pseuds/comfortwriter28)
> 
> The next two chapters will be split POV between Monty and Chloe, with the first providing backstory to Monty's blue plaster cast at the end of s2. Unfortunately as we reach the end of this fic, we're also coming to the end of their friendship, which will be covered in the next two updates.
> 
> Thank you as always for reading and your kudos and comments! <3


	22. Plaster Cast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A speculative back-story for the original of Monty's blue plaster cast in S2.

Monty sat on the edge of his bed, his phone quiet and untouched on the bedside cabinet to his right, and looked at the handle on the back of the half-closed bedroom door. 

He had run out of ideas days ago, but until now, had pushed the acknowledgement away, refusing to admit it.

He didn’t know what to do.

And he had no one left to ask.

Chloe, only a few dozen feet away on the other side of the fence, may as well have been at the bottom of the ocean, the distance between them felt so vast. Monty had wondered, afterwards, if the reason she had texted him, the reason she had come to the pool house that afternoon, after Bryce had testified, was to tell him that she would be taking the stand on behalf of the Baker’s the following day. How things might have been different if he hadn’t cut across her first, blurting the question that had been eating at him since she had left him, Bryce and Scott at the table by the back quad, and Bryce had posed his request wrapped in a thinly veiled threat.

_I know you’re lying. I know what you are._

_Get back at Jensen for me, or everyone will know. Starting with Scott, right now._

Stupid fucking Corey.

No. _Clay._

Stupid fucking Clay and his self-righteousness and his hero complex and sense of justice.

Stupid fucking idiot and his pained, hitching little grunts and groans as they had thrown him to the floor of the locker room and kicked him like it was some sort of competition – a race to the finish, who could land the most blows before Monty gestured for them to stop. 

Fucking Justin. He had clearly been spending too much time with Jensen, to not recognise an out when he was given one, to continue to push Bryce’s buttons, to suggest that he was _hiding behind his boys_ , even if it was fucking true. What did he hope to achieve? Suspension for all of them? Expulsion, only a few days after he had found his way back from whatever hell had been wrought on him – or he had brought on himself – in Oakland? Couldn’t he see how dangerous it was, him getting wrapped up in Jensen’s crusade?

Fucking Alex and his self-serving bullshit. Like he hadn’t been at that party. Like he hadn’t heard Bryce and Hannah in the hot tub, and wondered, and assumed, and done nothing. As if he wasn’t the one who had called her a desperate slut. _You’re going to jail_? Fuck him for having Deputy _fucking_ Dad to run to every time he fucked up. 

Fucking Tyler Down. That creepy little perve, stalking girls, taking photos of them in their underwear through their bedroom windows at night, spreading them around the school because it was somehow an unexpected and hurtful surprise to him that the same girl he had violated the privacy of found him fucking repulsive. And the _team_ were the rapists? 

Zach. Always so desperate to believe, to prove, that he was better than the rest of them were, and in the process, he had narced on the clubhouse and taken away one of the only safe places Monty had. 

Scott. Suddenly he was better than everything he had done since coming to Liberty, all of the times he had looked away and kept his mouth shut and protected Bryce. As if that weren’t hypocritical enough, he had turned on Monty for trying to protect his own interests, in an effort to achieve exactly the same for himself. And he had followed up Zach’s betrayal and completed the one-two punch, revealing the hobo hotel, and the last hiding place he had left. 

People called _him_ stupid.

Couldn’t any of them see that what they were doing was useless? Bryce would win – he always did. Even when he lost, he won, because he would take every single one of them down with him. Justin had to know that now, sitting in a cell in juvenile detention, while Bryce lounged around his mansion as if nothing and no one in the world could touch him, because it was true. 

Bryce had been texting Monty for days, had tried calling a few times, as well, the day that the box of polaroids went missing. It wasn’t safe at home - not from unpredictable pain or violence or the tension of knowing that they were close by, always, but never _how_ close, or when they might be visited upon him – but Monty had stuck close to the house anyway. He had nowhere else to go, after Scott had orchestrated the ambush at the hobo hotel. He couldn’t trust that one of the others, or all of them, might not show up there again, certain that he had taken the polaroids, and that he had done so to protect Bryce. 

The fucked-up thing was, Bryce seemed to believe he had done the exact same thing. 

But he wouldn’t come to the house to make sure of it. Even he was scared of Big Monty.

He texted instead, his messages twisting from questions to accusations to threats.

Monty knew, Bryce would never believe him if he tried to deny it. 

So, Monty stayed close to home, ignoring Bryce’s text messages - _where are you? why aren’t you answering? Was it you? Jesus Christ you’re a fucking coward. If you’ve got that fucking box, Monty, I swear to fucking God…_ \- and tried to figure out what the hell to do next.

Monty wished he could talk to Chloe.

He wished that, the afternoon at the pool house, he hadn’t been so terrified and suspicious and desperate for her to confirm it wasn’t true, that he hadn’t confronted her when she clearly had something to ask, throwing the question at her before she could pose hers. Part of him knew what it was that she wanted to know – even before she had testified, before those polaroids had been held up in front of a courtroom of people – and he couldn’t bear the thought of having to answer, because he couldn’t fucking lie. Not about that. Not to her. 

Monty looked down at his hands, resting in his lap, and realised they were shaking. Frustrated, clenching his jaw, he tightened them into fists. 

It had been almost two weeks since the afternoon at the pool house, since Chloe had taken the stand the next day and, unable to betray Bryce – especially with him watching her, blank faced and unrelenting, from the gallery – had done the complete opposite, twisting the truth into a lie to protect him, and take the blame for what he had done to her upon herself.

Monty had heard what had happened second-hand. He was one black mark away from another expulsion that he couldn’t afford and had slipped away from the brawl before the faculty had managed to rally enough numbers to begin scooping up the students involved and corralling them into detention.

And he didn’t know what to do.

He had tapped out what felt like endless text messages. 

_i understand why you did it_

_i get why you wanted to testify. and i get why you couldn’t._

_i would have done the same thing_

_it’s not your fault_

_it’s mine_

He didn’t send any of them.

He slept in the Jeep, the night after being confronted at the hobo hotel, after staring down the barrel of that gun, twice, and encouraging Alex to just do it. What in the fuck alternatives did Standall think he had? Couldn’t he understand that the practice target, the bullet, the note he had left with that final package that he dumped on the counter at Baker’s Drug Store while the pharmacist who replaced Hannah’s dad was talking to a customer at the other end of the dispensary; they weren’t meant for him? Not really. Or they were - because goddamn it, he wanted someone to _hurt_ the way he was hurting - but not _only_ for him?

Apparently, Alex was as much of a coward as he was, letting him take the gun right out of his hand.

It hadn’t even been loaded. 

With the gun tucked back underneath the passenger seat of the Wrangler, Monty had tried to sleep, pulled up to the gates at the end of the navy pier, right alongside the spot where that beat up old Bronco had been parked, what felt like a lifetime ago. 

He tried to close his eyes, but mostly, he thought about how everything he had done, everything that felt like it was necessary, all of it had been wrong, and for nothing. 

He thought about how, hands unsteady with dread on the steering wheel, after avoiding Liberty and Bryce and the rest of the guys all day, he had driven to Bryce’s house, after Chloe had tried to testify against him, to tell the other boy what he had done – what he had been doing for weeks, despite that Bryce told him to leave it alone and not get involved. Bryce would find out eventually, and if it meant that his fury was diverted away from Chloe – well, it would be the one thing he might be able to do right, in all of this. 

He thought about how, as he had pulled into the street, Justin and Clay had been standing on the footpath outside, Jensen waving a gun first at Justin and then, more deliberately, at Bryce, before turning it on himself, screwing his eyes closed as if fighting for the resolve he couldn’t quite muster. He thought about how he had slowed to a stop, flicking the headlights off, and watched Justin talk the other boy down, managing to gently take the gun from him, and help him into the Prius parked at the bottom of the driveway. Whatever he said in that last moment before he slid into the seat behind the steering wheel had twisted Bryce’s features with hurt and betrayal. 

He thought about how he had followed them from the estate, not even sure why or what he would do, angry and puzzled and frustrated, but also sort of scared by how disconnected Jensen had looked, and the fact that he was in the car with Justin, and that gun. Justin had noticed him, tried to shake him loose, as if he didn’t know exactly where they were headed. So he had backed off and, twenty minutes later, when he pulled up behind the Prius parked outside of the Jensen house, didn’t know what else to do, other than what he had been doing for weeks, and tucked the scrawled message underneath the windshield wiper. 

He hadn’t even known Justin was scheduled to testify the next day. 

The screen door slammed closed at the front of the house, and Monty cursed at himself, unable to suppress a flinch.

He hadn’t slept more than a few snatches of fifteen minutes here and there, that night in the Jeep.

He had barely slept at all, in his own bed, at the house, since Chloe’s testimony. 

When he did, he dreamed of the black thing.

And when he woke, and looked at his hands, his face slick with sweat and his pulse stuttering in his chest, they belonged to the monster, and not him.

Or maybe that was the same thing.

His father appeared in the hallway, nudging the bedroom door with the toe of his boot to swing it all the way open. He wore a distracted frown, his brows drawn together and his hands tucked into the pockets of the vest that he wore over a navy work shirt. He didn’t seem angry, but that didn’t mean anything. He hadn’t seemed angry last night, either, but that hadn’t made a difference when, after the third text message from Bryce had vibrated Monty’s phone in the pocket of his jeans, his father had gotten up so quickly from the other side of the dinner table that he had knocked what was left on his plate onto the floor, and in a desperate rush to avoid the hands that reached for him, Monty had overturned his chair and ended up in a sprawl on the linoleum, where he took the punishment from his boots, instead of his fists. 

Normally, he would have left the house afterwards, but he had nowhere else to be, so he had simply limped to his room, lay on his bed covers, and tried not to sleep. 

Although his father’s silence ate at him, Monty looked up at him silently, waiting.

After a moment of thought, he spoke, his tone calm and almost conversational. 

“Some _pinche_ kids went down the street and knocked over all the trash cans put out for collection this morning.”

It was the sort of thing that he and Chloe might have done, years ago. When being at home was so tense or oppressive or frightening that the release and relief of harmless – if somewhat irritating – destruction was too much to resist. They would skim along the edge of the curb on their skateboards, flipping the lids off of trash cans to crash noisily in the street or, if they pushed too hard, needed to make a little more mess to chase away the feeling of helplessness, tipped the cans over altogether, laughing as they picked up speed on their escape route down the hill, leaving a trail of kitchen scraps, plastic packaging, dirty diapers and empty bottles and cans in their wake. 

They had given that up years ago, moving on to tacking cap gun pellets on the edge of mailbox flaps and behind the rear tyres of parked cars, giggling as they peeped out from behind a fence or a tree and watched the neighbours jump in surprise at the sudden, unexpected _crack_.

Monty waited, but his father offered nothing further, his hands still dug in the pockets of his vest as he watched him. Unsettled by the lack of question, instruction or accusation, uncertain what other reason he might have to share the otherwise unaccompanied information, Monty lifted his shoulders in a small, inquisitive shrug. 

“You want me to go clean it up, or...?”

“No,” his father shook his head, looking down as he withdrew his hands from his pockets. “I already did.” 

In his right hand, he held a crumpled envelope, the lower edge stained with something from the trash it had been stuffed down amongst and the upper corner stamped with the Liberty High School logo, and Monty felt his heartbeat skid to a stuttering halt. Lips parted around an excuse or explanation or apology that wouldn’t shake free, he watched his father slip free the letter inside, the envelope already torn open, and unfold it. He made a show of reading silently, although Monty knew, could see in the tight pinch of his grip on the sheet of paper, hear it in the sharp edges of his voice when, having satisfied himself that the document still said what it had the first time he had read it, he spoke - he already knew what it said. 

“Looks like your baseball season got cancelled because of all that vandalism to the field.” His father’s conversational tone was stretched taut over boiling fury, burning hot and dark in his eyes when he looked up at Monty. “Dated nearly two weeks ago.”

Monty knew that the letter was date-stamped before Spring Break. Of course, he did – he was the one who had pulled it from the mailbox and torn it open. 

He had already known, at that stage, that the season was cancelled. Coach Rick had gotten them together to tell them in person, and Monty had tried to keep the colour from draining from his face the way it did Scott’s, on the other side of the locker room. His betrayal at the Hobo Hotel was still fresh and stinging, but Monty hadn’t been able to quite crush down the little bite of sympathy that sparked sharply for the other boy. Baseball was Scott’s whole life – at least, from the perspective of his father. It wasn’t just a scholarship opportunity, like it was for Monty, that chance and the escape that it represented now reduced, in an instant, by a third. It was the reason they had moved to California, the bedrock of the Reed family, the context for their every waking thought. 

And now it was gone, burned and destroyed just as thoroughly as the petrol-soaked baseball diamond had been. 

Zach had already quit the team over some sort of disagreement with Coach Rick that Monty didn’t know or care to find out the details of. Bryce’s transfer to Hillcrest was all but confirmed, the only thing left to secure his place being his father’s signature on the donation cheque. Monty had no idea what he was going to do, but at least he didn’t have to worry about his parents’ reaction. Or at least, he hadn’t thought so, at the time. 

That was before the letter had arrived, on the day that Chloe had testified. The day that the tension between Bryce and Justin had reached breaking point and escalated into a messy, chaotic brawl that encompassed more than three dozen students, half the football and baseball teams, and the entire hallway. The day that Scott had texted him to say that he had been to the clubhouse, no doubt to escape his father and whatever endless tirade he had lost himself to over the season cancellation, and found it empty of everything except practice sleds, hurdles and chalk machines, the couch and armchair where they had once slept, when they had no safer options, gone as if they had never existed. 

The day that Monty had realised that he had no idea what he was doing, or what he could do, or what would happen, or how he could fix any of it. 

The day that he had glanced at the house from where he was standing at the mailbox at the bottom of the driveway, at the open front door, which poured the sound of his father shouting, speech slurred and laced with cursing, down the street. The day that he had been cautioned that if he was reported showing up intoxicated at the hospital demolition project one more time, he would be kicked off the job. The day that Monty had decided that his parents didn’t need to know about the season being cancelled, and on his way around the side of the house to climb in through his bedroom window and zip a change of clothes into his backpack – just in case he needed to slip out later and try his luck with Bryce, or make the drive out to the hobo hotel – he had stuffed the letter into the trash can amongst the garbage he had brought out from the kitchen the night before. 

The day that, apparently too incensed to heed the warning he had been given, his father had continued drinking long after hanging up the phone, stalking between the couch and the carport, where he clattered around loudly amongst the tools in the tray of his truck, muttering angrily to himself, and sometime between then and morning, had come to the conclusion that it was Monty’s fault, and swung the rusty old hammer from his truck at his head in retribution. 

He had managed to duck the first attempt, and deflect the second, but wasn’t fast or strong enough to avoid the third. 

The bruise, which had stained most of the left side of his face in hues of purple, had since faded to an ugly, mostly-healed shade of amber.

Monty licked his lower lip anxiously. 

His father was standing in the doorway, blocking any forward escape, the room small enough that with one step and a half-hearted reach, he could make physical contact. Behind him, the window pane wasn’t latched – even despite how long it had been since either he or Chloe had climbed through it, Monty couldn’t quite bring himself to lock it, blaming the instinctive resistance on force of habit – but it was closed, and he wouldn’t have time to force it open and himself out through it before he was dragged back. 

“Dad-“

“So, if you weren’t at baseball practice, like you said-“ his father cut over him, as if he hadn’t opened his mouth to speak at all. “-where the fuck were you when you when you couldn’t work last Saturday?”

Monty glanced at his phone.

_Where was he?_

Fucking everything up, like he always was.

His capacity for failure was nothing if not consistent. 

And there was no right answer. 

Bracing himself to defend, or run, Monty dropped his gaze to his father’s boots and lifted his shoulders in a shrug.

“Nowhere.”

~

Chloe sat cross-legged on the edge of the paved patio in the spring sunshine and used a trowel to shovel potting mix into the window planter her mother had bought from the hardware store.

It was supposed to have been a Spring Break project for her and Amelia. Something that they could do to keep themselves occupied and out of mischief while their mother was at work. Something that would give them a productive outlet and take Chloe’s mind off of the trial – not against the school; this one hearing criminal charges against Bryce, because Jessica had done what she hadn’t been able to, and Justin had been there to help her through it, this time. They hadn’t made quite as much progress on the project as they had hoped. Sanding back the playhouse had taken more time and been a dirtier job than Chloe had anticipated, and the painting – shades of white and lemon that Amelia had selected, wrinkling her nose at their mother’s suggestions which ranged from pale blossom to fuchsia pink – a lot less fun than she had hoped. 

Or perhaps it would have been fun, if she had been able to focus on it. 

Certainly, Amelia seemed to have a ball, splattering paint on the lawn and the nearby bushes and all over her own overalls, face and hair, seeming to delight in making as much of a mess as she could, until her face was practically finger-painted pale yellow as she attempted to dot freckles across her nose and cheeks with a paint-dipped fingertip.

Chloe, in charge of painting the roof shingles, door and trimmings white, had worked quietly with her roller, and much slower than she had realised, blinking herself out of her thoughts every now and then to find that Amelia had painted a whole side of the playhouse in the time that she had been absently and repeatedly running her roller over the same half a square foot of roof space. As a result, they hadn’t made enough progress to finish off their little renovation project with the window sill planter box they had planned, so Chloe had promised to put it together while their mother and Tom took Amelia shopping for leggings and leotards. She would be starting gymnastics classes at the recreation centre the following week. 

Reaching for a pot of African violets, Chloe absently squeezed the edges of the soft plastic punnet, loosening the soil and roots from the sides, and sank back into the familiar mire of her thoughts.

When she tried to recreate what had happened – how she had shifted so swiftly from righteous rage at what Bryce had done to her, what he was doing to Monty, what they had lost and done to each other because of him – she felt as if she was interrogating the thoughts and feelings of another person entirely. Despite that she had twisted her hands anxiously in her lap beneath the edge of the table, sitting across from the Baker’s lawyer, all of those hopeful, expectant eyes on her, she knew what she wanted to do. 

It wasn’t just for her, or for Jess and Hannah. It was for her mother, who had wept when Chloe had shown her the polaroids the night before the meeting, and had apologised to her daughter, as if she had been the one to hurt her. It was for Amelia, who had been raised and abandoned by the same kind of man who had raised and abandoned Chloe, and had raised and abandoned their mother before that, and who deserved better. It was for Monty, who had reached out to the same boy for protection and friendship as she had, and had lost himself in the process, desperately clinging to the hopeful possibility of survival as he contorted himself into something he might have never learned to be, otherwise.

But then, sitting in the stand, all of those eyes on her – hopeful, expectant, accusatory, threatening – what had seemed to her to be a perfectly clear path, only hours earlier, was suddenly rocky and uncertain underfoot, and no one was reaching back their hand to steady her, this time. She was all on her own. 

And it was terrifying. 

Her mother had said that it was up to her, whether or not she testified, but sitting in the witness box, Bryce watching her past the lawyer’s shoulder, it didn’t feel that way, at all. Who was she, to say that her version of the truth was what happened? And who would believe her, anyway? The girl whose father hadn’t wanted her, whose stepfather had despised her, who had sacrificed her only true friendship at the beginning of freshman year for the vapid goal of popularity and a new start as somebody different? The girl who had lied and threatened others, who had tried to break Jessica’s resolve to protect herself and the boy she loved? Jessica hadn’t even been mad at her, like she deserved, when admitted what she had done.

How could she go back to school, after telling the world what had happened to her, only a day after realising that what she had suspected and feared was not only real, but captured in horrifying photographic evidence? How could she walk the path she had already watched Jessica stumble down, that she had stood along the edge of and tried to trip the other girl, herself? How could she justify tearing down the lives and reputations of her mother, her sister, the other boys on the baseball team, who were already being accused of crimes they didn’t commit, in hope that she might feel better about herself and what had happened?

How could she do that to Bryce?

Chloe knew the truth, and it was simple - she couldn’t remember what had happened that day. She remembered the clubhouse, and drinking and laughing with Bryce and a handful of others. She remembered someone passing her the bowl and the pipe. 

She didn’t remember having sex with Bryce. 

She didn’t remember those photos being taken. 

But did that mean that she had not been responsible for her own actions? Did that mean that he had done something to her that she didn’t want? Did that mean that she hadn’t consented, or just that she couldn’t recall? 

_Someone else force you to drink all that vodka?_

_Someone put a gun to your head, tell you how to pack those cones you smoked?_

_You don’t even remember what happened. How can you know it didn’t happen the way I told you it did?_

_And even if you did feel like something was wrong, afterwards, how is that my fault?_

_If that’s rape, every girl at this school wants to be raped._

As Bryce had watched her from the gallery, his expression still but his gaze full of anxious hurt, her thoughts had twisted over one another the way that her hands wounded around each other tightly in her lap, until she couldn’t determine which of the recriminations were her own, and which were remnants of her father, or Radic, or Bryce. Until they were all hers, and she had no idea what she was doing, or why she had ever thought she was strong enough to do it. 

_Stupid little girl._

She had been in this position before, had the opportunity to be strong, and she hadn’t been able to do it then. 

She had no reason or right to do it now.

Bryce was angry, at first. That was fine. She was angry, too. At herself, at him, at the school - for waiting until she had been publicly humiliated, allowing those polaroids to be shown in court and then telling everyone that she had agreed to have them taken, before they had destroyed the clubhouse after years of turning a blind eye to it. She had been angry when Bryce had sat next to her in Childs’ office and instead of supporting her, the way that she had been trying to support him, he had confirmed all of her hesitations and self-doubt – that she had put herself in that position, that she only had herself to blame, that no one was going to believe anything she said now. 

Chloe didn’t realise until later, after Childs issued her with a warning for her behaviour at the clubhouse, and for bringing the school into disrepute by disclosing its existence in court instead of bringing it to the administration, that for all of his irritation and reprimands, Bryce hadn’t ever denied that what she had planned to say on the stand was true. 

The thought had played on her mind as she texted him afterwards, trying to determine what he was thinking and how he was feeling, part of her wracked with guilt and disappointment, the other terrified of what he might do, how and where and upon whom he might direct his sense of betrayal. Eventually, she had found him in the library, and she didn’t feel better, exactly, after they had talked. She felt less frightened, because his demeanour was far more measured and sombre than she had expected, all of that fiery betrayal burned down to embers, but no less remorseful. 

He was clearly hurt, and despite everything, that hadn’t been what she wanted. 

Or maybe it was, at the time but, faced with it, she regretted having felt that way. 

Now, mostly, she just felt sad, and alone.

Holding the pot over the planter box to catch the loose soil, Chloe slipped the African violets free and settled them into the divot she had made in the potting mix. 

Jessica had, unsurprisingly, lost patience with her. Chloe understood. It would have been better to have said nothing at all than to have panicked and insisted what happened at the clubhouse was consensual, which made Jess’s own story, and Hannah’s, just that much more deniable, and Bryce’s life – if it were even possible, somehow – just that little bit easier. Her friends from the squad, girls who had been to the clubhouse and those who hadn’t, whispered about what had happened, amongst themselves and in the hallways and classrooms with other students. She tried to avoid the bathrooms at school – she was terrified what she might read scrawled on the stall walls and doors about her. Boys looked at her like they knew her, or at least what she was, and those who cocked an eyebrow or pursed their lips at her were somehow even worse than the ones whose expressions registered disillusionment and disgust. She had tried to refocus on her school work, over the last week before Spring Break, but the idea of running into Zach at study group had made her feel sick. She couldn’t bear to see the disappointment in his eyes when he saw her. 

She wished she could talk to Monty, even though the logical part of her knew that she shouldn’t. 

Monty was fraying, and it was completely different to that time, when they had transitioned from eleven to twelve, and over the space of months, he had disappeared inside of himself to a place so deep and dark that it was as if he wasn’t present at all any more, and she had no idea how to reach him, or if she could, or if it was safe to try. Chloe couldn’t help but feel as if she had caused it. Or at least, been the catalyst that had set him on a path that he took to with such single-minded dedication that he didn’t even flinch as every step forward – every threat, every act of destruction and harassment and victimisation – abraded him, shredding his resolve as it simultaneously grazed and ground away any sense of boundaries, so that nothing seemed inappropriate or too much, and at the same time, nothing seemed like enough, because none of it was working, and no matter what he did, he couldn’t sway the course of the trial from its inevitable outcome, and what it would cost him.

In the face of all of that effort, she had portrayed the clubhouse as a place where baseball players – where boys like Monty – preyed on their classmates and did all of those reprehensible things that the Baker’s lawyer accused the school of covering up. And even if it was true – which she suspected, and Jess asserted, but she didn’t _know_ \- by backing away from her determination to call Bryce out for what he had done, she had shifted the blame from his shoulders for a solitary act, to the team and the school, for allowing it to happen. Somehow, although Chloe could hardly make sense of it herself, the concept of a culture that allowed consensual sex between two students on school property was far worse and farther reaching than the implications of one student raping another, and the consequences that she had intended for Bryce were parcelled out equally across the team instead, boys who didn’t deserve it, who she hadn’t intended to hurt, caught up in her panic to retract and control the damage of what she had revealed.

The official line that Liberty rolled out was that the baseball season had been cancelled because of the graffiti and vandalism to the field, but she knew as well as any other student on campus – it was because of the clubhouse, and her exposure of it in the courtroom, where it couldn’t be glossed over or explained away any longer. 

Her mother reassured her that she had done as much as she could – even if it had not been the thing she had set out to do – and Chloe nodded, swallowing hard against the prickle in the back of her throat, because it didn’t _feel_ like enough, not as much as she could have done, but she was tired of crying when she thought about it. 

All of it had been a mistake, every step she had taken had been wrong, and she didn’t know how to fix it. 

She wished that she could go back to that night, and stop herself from sending that text.

_i need you_

She wished that she would have gotten up from her desk and shut her bedroom door after overhearing the exchange between Tom and Amelia in the living room – 

“That’s a fine-looking horse, Amelia” – Tom, the father of three-college age boys, was always a little awkward, although generally endearing, in his attempts to make polite conversation with them.

“It’s an African Painted Dog” – Amelia’s slightly offended response, as Chloe pictured her flipping closed the book she was using as a reference for her drawing, one of the stack she had taken out from the library for a school project.

“Oh. Sorry. I… it’s-I mean, it’s lovely, though.”

\- maybe if she hadn’t heard anything after that, things would have been different. 

Chloe wished that she had kept control of their plan, or not shared it with Monty at all, certainly not relinquished it to him. After the first few days of the trial, they rarely spoke about it, and Chloe got the impression that, aside from the obvious acts that he couldn’t deny were his doing, there were other things that he hadn’t told her, things that might have deviated from their original intent, that became more targeted and violent than he knew she would have agreed with. And she hadn’t asked, despite suspecting it, because part of her wanted him to do it, to protect himself in a way he never had felt driven or tried to before, and part of her was frightened to know what that meant. 

She wished that she had never gone to the pool house that afternoon. Maybe if it had been different, just the two of them, at the skatepark or at one of their windows, without Bryce and the other boys in the background, they could have just talked the way that they used to. It would have been hard, and it would have hurt, but they might have been able to find some way to work their way through it, to each say what they needed to say, to lay out the broken pieces that they were clinging to and start shifting them around, matching the shattered edges, putting them back together. It would never be pretty or perfect, but it never had been, and now, she couldn’t fathom how they would ever repair it. It had been too long, carrying those sharp and broken shards, too many of the small, integral pieces lost along the way, too many worn and ground down to dust. 

Like the little piece she had crushed, that afternoon at the pool house.

And even though she couldn’t be certain, Chloe felt with a sense of dread and resignation, that even if she had spoken first, the outcome would have been the same. 

She didn’t know what to do. And she was terrified to admit that, perhaps, there was nothing she _could_ do, now. 

As she pressed down the potting mix around the base of the violets, Chloe became aware of a rhythmic thudding and, startled, looked up at the sound of running footsteps on the other side of the back fence.

“Get back here, you little shit!”

Her grip tightened on the trowel at the clatter on the opposite side of the wood palings, announcing an unceremonious arrival at the property line, and a half-second later, Monty gripped the upper edge of the fence with both hands, hauling himself up. In her haste to stand, Chloe neglected to let go of the trowel, scraping her knuckles on the patio pavers as she stumbled to her feet. 

On the far side of the yard, Monty swung his other foot over the fence, supporting his balance with one hand on the upper edge of the palings and the other on the support beam on the opposite side.

As Monty pushed off in a desperate attempt to escape and freefall to the relative safety of the opposite side of the wooden barrier, releasing his grip on the fence, a hand snatched at him from the other side, locking around his wrist. 

It happened in such quick succession that Chloe wasn’t sure which gave first – his shoulder, the joint torn under his own body weight as his sneakers skimmed the mulch in the garden bed, not quite tall enough to clear the distance, or the bones in his forearm, weighted on both sides and snapped over the edge of the fence palings. 

The sound he made was unlike anything Chloe had ever heard from him, or anyone else, before; the defeated, terrified wail of an injured animal, raw and torn out of him so brutally that his voice cracked. It cut through her, stealing her breath. She dropped the trowel to the paving stones as her hands flew to her mouth, her heart hammering a galloping drumbeat in her chest, shock and adrenaline carrying her forward. As she ran, stumbling around the end of the sunbed left out in the middle of the lawn to dry the painting equipment laid out across it, Monty grasped at the top of the fence with his right hand and, pushing with the toes of his sneakers jammed against the palings, managed to gain enough upward momentum to clear the distance he needed to swing downwards with his clenched right fist. 

There was a dull crunch, the hand clasped around his wrist slipped loose, and he crumpled in a heap in the garden bed at the foot of the fence.

“Monty-“ Chloe gasped, tumbling to her knees beside him. 

“ _Don’t_ ,” he rasped, breathlessly, half-slumped against the fence, when she tried to reach for him. His face was sheet-white beneath his freckles as adrenaline began to give way to shock, clammy sweat breaking out across his skin. Jaw trembling, he lifted his chin toward the fence, asking, “is he still there?”

With shaking hands, Chloe leaned close to the fence, peering through a narrow gap between the wooden planks. 

“He’s there,” she whispered, her throat so swollen with fright that it almost entirely choked the words. “He’s on the ground, but he’s moving. Not a lot.” 

Monty grunted softly in acknowledgement and her gaze slid sideways to him. He knelt with his arm cradled protectively close, the shoulder joint beneath his shirt intensely tight but _wrong_ and out of place, his forearm, resting in his lap, grazed from the top of the fence and beginning to swell. The knuckles of his right hand were already beginning to darken with broken vessels from the impact of the wild, desperate punch he had thrown. He clenched his eyes closed and, from beneath his dark eyelashes, involuntary tears of pain slipped down his cheeks.

“What happened?” she asked, even though the question felt useless, as soon as she had voiced it. Nothing had to have happened, no trigger was required, not when it came to his father’s violent temper, and anyway, it didn’t matter. Nothing could have justified it, or made it any better.

“The school sent letters home,” he explained, haltingly, through teeth chattering with aftershock. “I hid it, but he found it.” His expression twisted with frustration and pain as he swiped at his damp cheeks with the back of his hand. “About baseball getting cancelled.”

Chloe’s heart sank like a heavy stone. 

Perhaps the reason why couldn’t have made it better, but it could certainly make it worse. 

Even if the letter hadn’t said it – and she doubted that it did – they both knew that the reason the season had been withdrawn was not because of graffiti that could be cleaned, or turf that could be replaced. 

It was because of her.

“I’m going to call an ambulance,” Chloe told him, resolutely, and moved to stand.

“No,” he bit out, doggedly, his brow furrowing and his eyes snapping open. Pleading edged the insistent rejection. “I can’t go to the hospital.”

She wasn’t surprised by the knee-jerk protest, but floundered for how to respond, even though she knew that they had no other option. Even taking into account that he didn’t have medical insurance, and even if she drove him in the Jeep instead to at least set aside the cost of an ambulance call out, even if they somehow managed, between them, to figure out how to reposition his shoulder by themselves, despite the idea of trying made her feel ill, he still needed medical attention. She couldn’t fix broken bones any more than she could fix everything else broken between them. 

“Monty-“

“I’ve got his fucking boot-prints all over me,” he ground out through gritted teeth, yanking at the hem of his Liberty Tigers t-shirt. Blue and purple imprints of the heel and steel-capped toe of a man’s shoe mottled his side. Chloe bit her lip against the rush of acidic nausea in her throat and her heart clenched in her chest as he looked at her for the first time in almost two weeks. “Chloe, I can’t spend the next six months in a fucking group home.”

It was a thought Chloe had considered, from time to time. As she grew older, and nothing changed about the cuts and bruises that the boy wore with reliable frequency, and she realised with age that she didn’t have to wait for an adult to do something about it – that there was no reason that the person who took action to intervene couldn’t be her. She had felt silly, when the idea had formed, for not having conceptualised it earlier, and the next time that he had tapped at the edge of her window, the back of his hand pressed to the still-bleeding split in his lip, she had announced that she was going to report it.

Much less than the relief that she had expected from him at the knowledge that she had finally realised that the barriers to helping him that she had grown up imagining had never existed, he had gone wide-eyed and pale at her words, shaking his head before he could even form a response. 

“Please don’t do that,” he had said quietly, accepting the damp washcloth that she handed him to press to his lip, although he didn’t apply it right away, holding her gaze and speaking clearly. “If they take me away from my dad, it might be somewhere worse.” At her hesitation, he had lifted his shoulder in a shrug, and looked up at her from where he was sitting on the corner of her bed. “It might be somewhere far away, where we couldn’t be friends anymore.”

It felt cruel to even consider that, if it meant that he would be safe from his father, she might be willing to make that sacrifice. 

But it was a choice that she couldn’t make alone – the friendship belonged to both of them, and the price for staying where he was in order to maintain it was his. 

And he made the same choice to pay it, over and over again, every time that she couldn’t stand it anymore, and every time that he implored her to leave alone – insisted that it wasn’t worth it. 

It wasn’t that Child Protective Services hadn’t ever become involved. She knew that they had. Once, when he was six and, before they had met, his father had put his head through the drywall, fracturing his skull on the formwork underneath. That had earned them an unannounced visit at the hospital, and a schedule of check-ins at the house. Again, when they were twelve, and someone had made and anonymous call, reporting the licence plate of Radic’s truck as they had driven away from the basement fight in bar that night, Monty bleeding and her face almost as white as his was in the back seat as she tried to hold together the torn and shredded flesh of his calf. The CPS officer had arrived, unannounced, at the address connected with Radic’s vehicle, and although he had redirected them, with visible relief, to the little green house on the opposite side of the block, he had taken the time to explain, first, that he didn’t know anything about any dog fighting, but he figured his neighbour for the helpful type who might have offered to look after a pet for family or friends, and, well, accidents happened between kids and animals sometimes, didn’t they?

A head injury framed as a slip or a trip, a dog attack excused as an unfortunate lapse of supervision over an unfamiliar animal, even coupled together, over the space of six years, could be rationalised as unlucky, but not improbable. A patchwork of day-old boot prints, a dislocated shoulder and a broken arm, swollen, bruising knuckles and over a decade of old scars, however – in the context of those old, explainable incidents – could very much become strike three. 

Monty wouldn’t turn eighteen until the end of summer. If he was removed from his parents now, he might not be able to finish the school year at Liberty, or at all. Instead of losing a scholarship opportunity, he could lose everything – his home, his family, his friends, Bryce, and her. Everything that he had done, everything they had tried, all of it would have been for nothing, and the outcome could be worse than they had ever considered. 

“Monty, I-“ Chloe shook her head, her hands trembling uselessly halfway between reaching for him and hesitating as he shrank back from her. “I can’t fix this. I have to call someone.”

They couldn’t hide in the quiet of the playhouse and will the world outside away, her arms wrapped around him protectively in the dark. They couldn’t lay next to one another on her bed, silent but safe, because they were together. They couldn’t escape to the woods, or the skatepark, climb into the Jeep and drive until they were far away from Evergreen and their lives and everything that had happened there. They were no longer children, and the solutions of children couldn’t fix anything anymore. 

Monty looked at her, his eyes hazy and damp with pain, and Chloe realised there was only one other option. As if he could see the thought form in her expression as he watched her, Monty nodded in resignation and acknowledgement, his voice quiet and defeated as he gave his permission.

“Call Bryce.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to comfortwriter28 for the beta-checking and the hours of chats :)
> 
> Thank you very much to sono for the referral to this super handy and helpful [ 13 Reasons Why Timeline ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16211879/chapters/37891385). I would very much recommend it to anyone who is writing to canon in s1 or s2.
> 
> Next up is the final moments of Monty and Chloe's friendship, and the end that has been coming since the beginning of this fic.
> 
> All of the remaining chapters are now drafted (phew! 1.5 weeks out from my due date!) and are currently in various stages of beta checking and editing, so I will plan to get them out over a quicker schedule with updates every few days, so that if my little miss does decide to arrive early, I am not leaving anyone hanging in suspense.
> 
> Thank you, as always, for taking the time to read and leave kudos or comments <3


	23. Window

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The inevitable end of Chloe and Monty's friendship.

_Seldom do these words ring true – when I’m constantly failing you_   
_Like walls that we just can’t break through – until we disappear_

[ **Savior – Rise Against**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8X3ACToii0)

~

“I, um-“ 

Chloe glanced up as her mother paused, halfway through spreading a piece of wholemeal toast with a thin scraping of marmalade where she stood at the kitchen counter. Her back was mostly turned, but it was clear that she had something she wanted to say, even as she hesitated.

“I saw a police cruiser, parked outside of Monty’s house this morning, when I was on my way back.”

Her mother was still dressed in her running clothes, her windproof vest zipped up high beneath her chin and her cheeks a little red from the cool morning air. Chloe, sitting at the kitchen table, paused with her spoon resting on the edge of a bowl of muesli and yoghurt. Amelia had taken her heaping bowl of corn flakes – the closest equivalent to a sugary cereal that their mother would agree to buy – into the living room to eat in front of the morning cartoons, and Louise spoke softly enough that her voice wouldn’t carry beyond the doorway, or be otherwise audible beneath the high-pitched squeak of Spongebob. 

It had been two days since she had stood in the driveway and watched Bryce help Monty into the passenger seat of the Range Rover. It felt surreal, to think of the way that Bryce had handled the other boy, his touch gentle and reassuring, careful of his injured arm as he got him settled and leaned in past him to buckle his seatbelt. She couldn’t think of a moment that she had ever witnessed contact between them any softer than a playful shove or an encouraging pat on the back during a football game. Bryce was in his element, taking command of the situation, providing solutions only he could facilitate, and she had stood at the edge of the carport, her unsteady hands clasped tightly, potting mix still dark in the lines of her palms and white paint clinging to the edges of her fingernails, as Bryce climbed into the driver’s seat and they pulled away.

Alone again, the street had suddenly seemed quiet, despite the normal sounds of nearby suburban traffic, the wind through the branches of the tree in the front yard, and children playing in the distance, and Chloe realised that it wasn’t the environment around her that was empty and still – it was the sudden absence of panic inside her own head, the return of her heart rate to a calm and steady beat, the gentle ebb of adrenaline draining away, its purpose served now that the immediate danger had passed. 

And in that space, all of her thoughts and worries scattered by the frantic panic of the moment, she realised that she couldn’t continue this way. 

It was a load she could no longer bear, the weight of caring so much for those two boys. The turmoil of trying to hold together everything that was broken between them, the searing pain of being hurt by them and the constant, gnawing ache of knowing how she had hurt them in return. She felt as if she would suffocate beneath the burden of trying to do the right thing and never knowing what it was, because anything that benefited one was to the detriment of the other, and every decision cost her dearly. She couldn’t continue to pretend as though she could somehow survive when her heart beat outside of her chest, half carried by each of them, everything that she was in their hands, to be cradled or crushed, at their whims.

It would ruin her. 

Something had to change. 

Her mother slipped into the chair opposite her, looking down at the toast on her plate, cut into neat triangles and arranged around a small stack of blueberries, but didn’t move to pick up a slice. She turned the knife in her hand back and forth on its edge, watching the tendrils of steam coiling from the ketogenic coffee she had brewed – her routine when she got back from a morning run. In the living room, Amelia giggled at an exchange between Patrick and Squidward. 

“I know the kind of reputation his father has around town and that it can’t have been easy for him, growing up in that house,” Louise said, finally, setting the knife down next to her plate. She met Chloe’s gaze across the table, her eyes the same dark shade of smoky blue. “I hope you don’t think any less of me. I tried to do my best, and all I ever wanted was to keep you safe.”

Chloe bit the inside of her lip. There had been a time when, too small and optimistic to accept that nothing in life was black and white, she had wondered, sometimes angrily, why adults were so wilfully ignorant of the injustices around them. Why no one said anything when something was clearly wrong, why there were no consequences for people who deserved them, why bad men were allowed to be that way, without fear of repercussions, or were sometimes even rewarded for those behaviours. It had seemed supremely unfair. Sometimes, it still did. 

But she thought she understood. 

Those bad men were other things, too. Fathers, sons, brothers, husbands. They had families and friends, people who loved them, people who they loved back. They were still bad, and should still experience the consequences that their behaviour warranted, but that wasn’t all they were. 

Sometimes – a lot of the time – things were not entirely right or completely wrong. Sometimes it was clear and inarguable, but even in those instances, that didn’t mean anything. Not when fairness was subjective. Not when a right thing couldn’t erase or balance a wrong thing. Not when an apology didn’t fix what was broken. Not when the accepted concept of justice and righteousness was so tightly wound around answering wrong with wrong. Not when a wrong thing could be done for the right reasons, or when the right thing turned out to be wrong. 

Nothing was fair. 

Leaving the toast on her plate, her mother reached for the mug of coffee, wrapping her slender fingers around it. 

“I know you would sneak him into your room, when you were small,” she said, and smiled a little, as if, despite the circumstances that necessitated it, the memory was a warm one. Chloe supposed that, held in a certain light, or stacked next to other, less pleasant moments, perhaps that was true. Louise cocked her head as she regarded her daughter across the table. “I guess that, even if I wasn’t as brave as I wish I could have been, I’m glad that you were.” Her smile brightened, proudly, as she insisted, “That you are.”

Chloe didn’t feel brave. 

She felt untethered and in pieces. 

She thought of the last time that Monty had climbed in through her window before the trial had started, the last time that he had agreed to lay beside her on her bed. It had been a Sunday night, and her mother and Radic were fighting in the kitchen. It started out the way a lot of their arguments did by that time, their marriage straining against Radic’s determination to break every single vow he had made on their wedding day and her mother’s steadfast refusal to fail again, her fingers almost constantly trembling from the effort of stubbornly clawing on to the fraying edges and refusing to let them go. They started with the usual question - where he had been and why he was getting home so late, and moved swiftly to the credit card bill and then Amelia’s ballet recital, which he had shown up dishevelled to and over an hour after it had started, missing two-thirds of the performances, including Amelia’s solo. 

Chloe had lay beneath her covers, staring up at the ceiling of her bedroom, hoping that her sister was sound asleep. Amelia had never grown out of the habit of sleeping with the rainmaker that she had used as a soothing aide as an infant, relying on the constant white noise to slip free of wakefulness, and most of the time, thankfully, it was effective at dulling the rise and fall of frustrated, angry voices from the kitchen.

And if it wasn’t, this time, at least Radic reliably shifted them along to their most common topic for disagreement, lately.

Her.

As Radic demanded to know, for what felt like the thousandth time, why Chloe shouldn’t have to pay board or contribute to the upkeep of the house when she was earning a part time income, she reached for her phone and rolled toward the window, curling tightly on her side as she texted beneath the blanket. 

_Are you awake?_

Sometimes he would lie and say that he was, and it was only obvious later, when he tapped at her bedroom window or lifted his open to admit her, that his eyes were swollen and bleary from the sleep she had roused him from; but this time, his reply arrived swiftly enough that he must have been up.

_yeh. but my dad is too. you ok?_

Chloe closed her eyes for a moment, the bright glow from the screen of her phone pinwheeling a kaleidoscope of colours across the inside of her eyelids while, in the kitchen, her mother attempted to defend her against the strung together accusations and failings that Radic fired off, ranging from her lack of contribution to the household to her attitude, her grades, her wardrobe and her diet. Every response that her mother offered simply set him on a different path, twisting what he had just said on itself to maintain the negative connotation while obliterating her protest, and when that didn’t work, Radic simply rolled out his prized and trusty fall-back; that she was playing favourites, that she favoured Chloe unfairly, that she was a terrible mother to Amelia, and a lacklustre wife to him as a result. 

Blinking back the sting that prickled at the corners of her eyes, she tapped out a response.

_Could you come over?_

Within seven minutes, Monty had climbed over the windowsill, finding the pane ajar as she had left it before coiling tightly on her mattress, the blankets pulled over her head. It did nothing to muffle the sound of the argument, but there was a tiny sliver of security in its familiarity, as Chloe clasped her phone to her chest the way that she would have once held her doll as she listened to her mother and father fighting downstairs when she was small. Beneath the sound of barely smothered yelling from the kitchen, their voices straining with anger and the effort to suppress their volume, she heard Monty latch the window closed behind him, and then felt the mattress shift behind her as he sat on its edge. After a moment, the solid, comforting weight of his hand rested on her back on the other side of the blanket. 

They had stayed like that for a while, neither speaking, Chloe trying to focus on the rhythmic pattern of her breathing beneath the blanket, to draw strength from the constant, reassuring presence of his hand. She trusted that he wouldn’t leave her, casting her off like her father had, deciding one day, without explanation or a chance to try to fix what she had done wrong, that he neither loved nor wanted her any more. He would always be there, just the two of them, against everything and everyone. 

In the kitchen, Radic scoffed, harsh and accusatory. 

“Don’t act like you never thought about how much easier our lives would be if you would have just left her with your piece of shit ex.”

Immediately, purposefully, Monty’s weight had levered from the edge of the bed, and Chloe shot out a hand from beneath the blanket to catch at the sleeve of his sweater, grasping the material tightly to anchor him there as she peered up at him from beneath the blanket, his expression a hardened mask of fury.

“Please, don’t,” she whispered to him, her fingers pinching tighter as he turned his head toward her open bedroom door, his hands curled into fists. “Just lie here with me? Only until I fall asleep.”

In the dim light of the room, she could just make out the flex of a muscle over his jaw as he clenched his teeth with frustration. Part of her wanted to let him go. Part of her wanted to encourage him, to go _with_ him, to ball her own hands into fists and to bring them down with as much force as she could muster on the man who had given her a sister, who she wouldn’t trade for anything in the world, but who had stolen everything he could from their family in the process. Who had taken the torn and tattered scraps of pride and self-worth that her mother had left after her first marriage and clenched them mercilessly in his fist. Who had seen her desperate need for validation and affection and care, and what she was willing to give up in exchange for it, or just for something that _looked_ like it, on the surface, and had weaponised that against her for his own gain. Who treated the relationship between Chloe and her mother like a tool for manipulation at best, and a scornful burden at worst, worthy only of criticism and dismissal. 

Part of her wanted to pull forward the memory of that day, after she had gotten into a fight with the girl on playground outside of the recreation centre when they were ten, and Monty had clasped her hands in his, taking in the bruises on her knuckles, and offered to teach her how to throw a punch. They didn’t have pads, but she wasn’t very good anyway – not to begin with – and she threw wild and uncontrolled blows at the palms of his hands, her nose wrinkling with a morbid sort of frustration that she couldn’t manage to hurt him, even as he patiently corrected her form and aim; until finally, they had both grinned triumphantly when, in response to a right hook, he hissed through his teeth and shook the sting from his hand. 

She had never had cause to actually hurt someone – or to try – but if she was going to hurt anyone, at the moment, she wished that it could be Radic.

And yet, she couldn’t quite manage to uncurl her grasp from the sleeve of his sweater, and as the voices rose in volume, anger overtaking care, Chloe had looked up at him imploringly.

“Please?”

As powerless as he had always been to deny her anything she asked for, Monty huffed an irritated breath through his nose, and nodded.

He pressed the bedroom door closed, flicked the lamp on to its lowest setting, and toed off his sneakers at the side of the bed. 

It should have been awkward – it had been a long time since they had lain alongside each other, and the quiet closeness had always had a sort of confronting intimacy - but he lay back quietly and compliantly, the way that they had when they were small, waiting as she shifted, rearranging her position and the blanket, maintaining the protective barrier, secured over her like a cocoon, but turning to curl in the opposite direction, her head resting on his chest in the dark beneath the quilt, where she could slow her breathing until it matched the strong, constant pattern of his heartbeat. 

As he always did, in the comfort of the presence of someone nearby, he slipped into sleep, while she lay awake for hours, long after the argument had ended, and listened to him breathe, deep and steady.

When he slept next to her, he didn’t dream. 

She wished that, if they could just lie next to each other, one more time, that would be enough to fix everything. 

Chloe set her spoon on the table beside her bowl. 

“He did the same for me,” she said, looking up at her mother, hoping that she didn’t mean the explanation to be taken as cruel, or judgemental. “It wasn’t always him, coming here. A lot of times, I climbed over the back fence, and went to him.” Chloe lifted her shoulder in a shrug, too tired to offer anything but the earnest truth. “Because I needed a safe place just as much.”

Her mother’s lips parted and pain tightened around her eyes at the admission, but she didn’t protest, and after a moment, simply nodded.

It shouldn’t have been right – that a little girl felt safer in the house of a man known for drunken violence, lying beside a boy expected to grow up in that man’s image – than she sometimes felt in her own home. But it was true. 

It shouldn’t have felt wrong – to care for and to trust someone else, not someone that she had known almost her whole life, who had protected her and who she had tried to do the same for in return. But it did. 

And it hurt. 

“If you care about somebody-“ Chloe hesitated, the word lodging uncomfortable in her throat, but there was no alternative more suitable or appropriate and, painfully, she forced it free. –“ if you love them; how do you know when it’s time to let them go?”

Her mother’s eyes softened, and she tilted her head apologetically. 

“Oh, sweetheart. I’m no expert in that,” she insisted, ruefully, then paused and looked down at her coffee mug, considering. “But I think, when you feel like staying will hurt you more than leaving, that’s when you’ll know.”

Chloe nodded quietly. She wasn’t sure what she had hoped the answer might be – anything that might have given her pause in what she knew she had to do would have just made the inevitable outcome harder and more painful. And yet she had hoped that, somehow, there might have been some other way forward that she hadn’t considered. Her breakfast almost entirely untouched, she lowered her hands into her lap, twisting her fingers together beneath the edge of the table as her mother reached for a piece of toast. 

“Not hungry, baby?” she asked, glancing down at Chloe’s bowl. 

Chloe shook her head.

“I’m just feeling a little off this morning.”

As if drawn by the admission, Amelia appeared in the doorway, her huge bowl of cereal somehow entirely demolished and secreted somewhere in her slender frame. She eyed Chloe’s bowl as she deposited her own in the kitchen sink. 

“I’ll eat it. If you’re not going to?”

Chloe slid the bowl across the table to the space in front of the empty chair closest to the sink, and Amelia grinned, retrieving a banana from the bowl of fruit by the window to slice over the top of the yoghurt and muesli. Taking a sip of coffee, Louise shook her head, raising an amused eyebrow as Amelia sat and enthusiastically peeled the fruit, pinching off the end of the banana to pop in her mouth as a snack while she cut thick slices onto the top of her second helping of breakfast. 

“Honestly, Amelia. I don’t know where you put all this food.”

Amelia just lifted her shoulders in a pragmatic shrug beneath her _Moana_ pyjamas, discarding the banana peel and digging a huge spoonful from the bowl.

“I’ve got ballet today, skateboarding tomorrow, and gymnastics on Saturday,” she said, shovelling in the heaping mouthful and speaking around it. “I need energy.”

Chloe smiled, despite that it hurt, to think about how, once upon a time, that schedule had been hers, and now, to consider all of the small ways that things would be different. Her mother glanced at her, a subtle, concerned question in her gaze, and Chloe excused herself from the table to get ready for school. 

~

In her room, the door pressed most of the way closed, she stood at her desk, her bag half packed and her phone in her hand. She hesitated as she stared down at the messaging app, her thumb hovering over the screen, indecisive. It was a simple message - _I need to talk to you_ \- but one that she desperately didn’t want to send. Despite its simplicity, she appreciated the weight of those words, and she stalled at the decision of who to contact first, flicking back and forth between Bryce and Monty. 

This was the hardest part, she knew – beginning the end. 

Her mind warred with her heart, insisting that there must be some way that she could fix this, some way that she could make it work. Maybe, if they could agree, one or the other, that they both give up the third, making a decision to forsake what they had in one hand in order to save what the held in the other, she wouldn’t have to lose both of them. 

But that still left the choice. Which one did she make the offer to?

Or, did she make the choice for both of them – identify herself as the third option – and remove herself from the equation to preserve what the two boys were to one another?

It was an impossible decision to make. 

Chloe blinked down at her phone as it responded to her hesitation and lack of activity by reverting to the lock screen, the time and date flashing up automatically. Absently, she glanced at the calendar hung on the wall beside the mirror above her desk, featuring photographs of floral landscapes, which she wasn’t particularly interested in, but the squares allocated per date underneath the sweeping photographs were large enough that she could make colour coded notes about her work shifts and upcoming tests, birthdays and holidays, exam periods and the cheer practice timetable. Preoccupied over the last few weeks, she had fallen behind crossing off the dates as they passed, the calendar still displaying the previous month. 

Although she realised that it was a feeble excuse to distract herself from what she should be doing, Chloe fished a pen from the desk drawer to catch up, and flicked the calendar to the current month, the photograph displaying a field full of colourful Spring wildflowers. 

When she had bought the calendar, in the bottom corner of the relevant squares, she had used a red marker to place a small dot, marking out her menstrual cycle, and as she began drawing neat crosses through each of the days’ past, Chloe realised that, according to the pattern she had marked out, her period should have started three days ago.

Her heartbeat sluggish with dread, Chloe double-checked her phone to be certain of the date and, clutching it in one unsteady hand, turned toward her bedside cabinet. Retrieving the tab of contraceptive pills that she had popped a tiny, sugar-coated button from earlier that morning, she checked the back of the packaging. The last blister broken was a day out from the red section of the colour-coded backing, suggesting that her cycle should commence the following day, but it also read SUN. 

_Sunday._

It was Wednesday. 

And she had no idea where, amongst the trial and the plan and the arguments with Bryce and the testimonies and everything else that had gone wrong over the past weeks, those three days had gone missing. She normally took the pill first thing in the morning, as soon as her alarm went off and before she even switched on her lamp, pressing the tiny tab sleepily from its plastic pouch and popping it onto her tongue, the motions a force of habit more than anything else. She had no idea, and no way of knowing, whether the missed days had been singular and spread across the last month, or consecutive, and far, far more troubling. 

With unsteady hands, Chloe tucked the pills back into her drawer, and hurriedly finished getting ready for school. 

Amelia took a different bus in the mornings, her timetable and the direction to her elementary school necessitating that they travel separately, and Chloe waved a quick, cheerful goodbye to her mother and sister as she headed for the door, moving swiftly before either could check the time and realise that she was leaving twenty minutes ahead of schedule – early enough to catch the bus that stopped at the corner before her normal route. The bus that would cut a path through the main street in town.

There was no way she could go to the Walplex – too many people there, employees and customers alike – would recognise her, and gossip about her purchase would spread like wildfire, so Chloe hopped off of the bus at the end of the main street and walked through the early morning quiet toward Bakers Drug Store. The graffiti in the windows was still in the process of being cleaned away, only the parts that could not be removed with a pressure cleaner clinging stubbornly to the windows like bloody red slashes across the glass. Lingering at the edge of the front window, Chloe bit her lip and peered through the glass, looking for Mrs Baker. 

She knew that Hannah’s father no longer worked at the little store – he had transferred to a job working behind the pharmacy dispensary counter at the Walplex months ago and Chloe dreaded the possibility of their paths crossing in the break room after her failure on the stand. Chloe couldn’t see anyone inside other than the tall, dark haired man dressed in a white pharmacist’s uniform behind the counter, but she waited, to be sure that Mrs Baker wasn’t crouched between the shelves, cleaning up and replacing damaged stock. After five minutes of waiting and watching and twisting her fingers together so tightly that they hurt, Chloe bit her lip, and slipped inside. 

The packet felt like a heavy stone in the bottom of her backpack as she rode the next bus to Liberty. She sat alone with her bag on her lap, holding it close to her body like a shield, as if anyone casting her a cursory glance might see her, and know. 

Keeping her head down and walking quickly, Chloe headed for the bathrooms in the Arts building, closest to her first period photography lesson. Thankfully, it was early enough that there was no one at the mirrors, adjusting their hair or makeup, and the stalls were all empty. She slipped into the furthest one, closing and locking the door behind her, and perched on the edge of the seat, her bag in her lap. Trying to breathe slowly, Chloe retrieved the package from where she had stuffed it down into the bottom of her backpack – three rapid-result pregnancy tests – and slid her bag to the tiled floor, placing the box in her lap instead. As she reached to reel off a few sheets of tissues to lay across the dispenser and place the tests on while they developed, words written in thick red marker on the wall above it caught her eye.

**Chloe Rice is a slut and a liar**

Chloe swallowed hard, broke off a short chain of tissue, lay it on the top of the dispenser, and tried to steady her hands so that she could read the instructions printed on the back of the test packaging.

Three tests.

And in the tiny plastic windows of all three – one clearer and darker than the others, but the result consistent - two pink lines. 

Positive.

Chloe waited for the tears that swelled in her throat and tightened her chest, but they wouldn’t come. Pressing her trembling lips together, she slid each test back into its foil wrapping, and then into the cardboard packaging, before shoving it down into the bottom of her backpack. The rest of the evidence, she dropped into the bowl of the toilet and flushed, checking the stall to make sure that she had left nothing behind before she washed her hands, avoiding her own gaze in the mirror, and headed to class.

Bryce wasn’t at school. He hadn’t been all week, since the criminal trial brought by Jessica Davis had started. Monty wasn’t at school either, and that first day, as she moved through her classes mindlessly, shell-shocked and distracted, Chloe thought it was just as well. She couldn’t think of a single word to say to anyone, that would make any sense amongst all of this, let alone the two of them. 

When she got home, she prised open the garbage bag in the trash can outside, and wrapped the test packet inside an empty bag from a packet of rice crackers, then slid that inside a half-crushed box of porridge sachets before pressing it all down and replacing the lid. 

Neither of the boys were in class the next day, either.

By the following night, as she sat in the breakroom at the Walplex, halfway through her shift, her stomach churning as she stared down at the unopened granola bar and her phone on the table in front of her, Chloe realised that, for as much shameful and terrifying indecision it introduced into her life, the positive tests did make one decision undeniably simple. 

She picked up her phone and unlocked the screen, tapping open the messaging app and swiping to Monty. 

_I need to talk to you_

~

_So tell me now – if this is love  
Then how do we get out? – coz I don’t know_

~

Monty saw Chloe’s silhouette in the dark outside of his bedroom window and sat up to open it for her before she tapped on its edge. She climbed inside quietly, accepting the hand that he offered to steady her as she settled her weight onto the bed. She glanced automatically from the hand he offered to his opposite arm, encased knuckles to elbow in a bright blue plaster cast, and then looked up at his face, her breath catching and her expression falling with dismay. 

“Was that before or after the police were here?”

Monty lifted his shoulder in a shrug as he let go of her hand to turn and lower the window back into place, aware of her gaze following the dark stain that coloured and swelled over his right eye.

“After.”

Because of. 

His mother, terrified and ashamed to have had two sheriff’s deputies in her home, sitting at her kitchen table, questioning her husband and son, had retreated to the bedroom to settled her frayed nerves before she had to leave for work, her hands still shaking since Deputy Standall had turned in the kitchen doorway as his father moved to show them out, looking back at Monty. _I’ve been hearing some troubling things about you, son. I’d appreciate it if you would come down to the station, sometime after school in the next week or two, so I can ask you some questions_. Monty had just shrugged and nodded, avoiding the dark look that his father cast him as he followed the two deputies to the front door. 

He hadn’t tried to move from where he sat at the kitchen table, waiting until his father returned, the inner sockets of both eyes stained purple and green from the punch Monty had landed against the bridge of his nose two days earlier, and turned his back to reach into the cupboard over the kitchen window, retrieving a half-full bottle of tequila. He had set it on the bench, and set his hands on either side of it, unsteady with alcohol withdrawal or rage or both. They had stayed like that, quiet and tense, until Monty shook his head. 

_We both know you want to. Just fucking do i-_

He hadn’t quite finished voicing the sentiment before the bottle had shattered against his temple. 

Afterwards, his parents went to work, and Monty mopped up the alcohol and blood, swept up the glass, and then texted Bryce to ask him what he should do about Standall’s request. 

The other boy had been in a meeting with his lawyers and hadn’t texted back for a few hours, but that was OK. It took a little while for Monty to work up the nerve to slip into his parents’ room, despite that he was alone in the house, to retrieve the tweezers from the drawer of his mother’s vanity, and even longer to fish out the thin sliver of glass from the small, deep little laceration at the edge of his eye socket, the area already beginning to swell. 

Chloe looked as if she wanted to ask more, but pressed the questions down as she shifted to mirror his position, sitting beneath the window with her back to the wall and her knees drawn to her chest. She was still wearing her Walplex uniform, the edge of the pale green shirt collar visible beneath the curve of the hood of her oversized _Anti-Social Social Club_ sweater. She wrapped her arms around her knees, the rounding of her shoulders protective and self-comforting as she looked at him sidelong. 

“Is that the reason why you’ve been off school?”

Monty cocked his head.

“Some,” he said, casually, and with little fanfare, added, “I went to visit Justin, today.”

Chloe looked surprised, her eyes rounding and her lips parting a moment before she queried, “You did?” When he just nodded to confirm, offering no further explanation, she raised her eyebrows, puzzled. “Why?”

Monty shrugged, resting his elbows on his knees and looking at the mottled bruising on the knuckles of his right hand. 

“I had to ask him something.”

The answer was given plainly, as if it were straightforward, but they both knew that it wasn’t. Not the question that he had had for Justin that had pushed him to make the drive out to the juvenile detention facility. Or the response that he had received in return for the effort. Or the answer that he gave now, which was not just an explanation, given freely and simply, but an invitation. 

Chloe had texted that she needed to talk. And Monty knew, what she needed was to ask him something. 

What she hadn’t been able to ask before.

He looked at her, waiting, and Chloe hesitated, biting her lip. Her fingers knotted together tightly where they were clasped around her raised knees, and she couldn’t quite bring herself to look at him, afraid of seeing the answer in his expression, despite that the only illumination in the room was provided by the scant moonlight through the window and the sliver of light that framed the mostly-closed bedroom door. 

“Did you know about the polaroids?”

Although it was the question Monty had expected, an instinctive, panicked, defensive part of him felt driven to clarify the question. 

Did he know about the box of polaroids that had accumulated over years, had existed long before he had ever arrived at Liberty, was a marker of the culture that he had slipped into as a means to hide who and what he was, to obscure the fact that he couldn’t participate the way the other boys did, because he wasn’t like them, even though he wanted to be?

Did he know that there had been two polaroids taken of her in that place? He wished he had. He wished he had stayed and kept looking until he came upon them, after Bryce had found him mid-search everything he had dreaded and tried desperately for years to keep from the other boy had proven futile. Maybe if he had, things would have been different. 

Did he know where the polaroids were now? Part of him wished he did. Part of him wished that he was the one who had stolen them, the way that everyone assumed. He didn’t know what he would have done with them, but at least it would be one less check on the list of things that people believed about him and might as well have been true, because denying them, being innocent of them, didn’t make any difference. 

He felt her eyes slip in his direction, and turned his head to meet her gaze. 

“Yes.”

Chloe took a slow breath, her eyelashes lowering to hide her gaze for a moment. She didn’t seem surprised, and he had expected that. Even the only person to have ever given him the benefit of the doubt could only be pushed so far. The part that wounded him, twisting low in his gut where he tried to press it down and numb the sensation, was that she didn’t even look disappointed, or hurt. Just sad.

“When?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

Monty shook his head.

“Does it matter?”

They both knew that it didn’t. It could have been the day that it happened or ten minutes before she climbed in through the window. The point was, he hadn’t told her. 

“I knew what happened,” Chloe said, and at first, Monty thought that she meant to refer to what Bryce had done to her, because he had suspected as much, when she had approached him the following morning as he mowed the front lawn and asked about the clubhouse. But when she raised her eyes to him, they were dark with pain and regret, and he bit the inside of his lip as she explained, haltingly, as if she were dredging every heavy, rusted word up from all of those years ago, when she wished she had said them. “What Coach Nathan did. To you. I saw it.”

It wasn’t what he expected her to say and it didn’t hurt, exactly – it felt a little like scratching at the ridged surface of an old scar, no longer painful but uncomfortable to touch – and he thought for a moment before responding.

“I know,” he said, glancing at her when she blinked at him, her expression full of surprise and anguish. He lifted his shoulder in a shrug. “I saw you. In the mirror.”

Chloe’s cheeks flushed pink with shame and she lowered her head as she processed the knowledge that the heavy, terrible secret she had thought she had been carrying for years wasn’t that at all – or was something worse, because it had been a secret from everyone but him. Monty didn’t know what to say to her. That it didn’t matter? That nothing happened? That she didn’t need to feel bad about it, because no one ever had, and anyway, it didn’t change anything? 

Chloe tightened her arms around her knees, her voice quiet and weighted with guilt. 

“I should have done something. Told someone.” She said, her voice thick with guilt and sorrow. “I got scared and I fucked up.” 

Monty felt compelled to reassure her. It had never occurred to him to feel that she had failed in any way, not in the moment that he had made out her horrified expression in the mirror past Coach Nathan’s arm, or as she looked up at him, shocked and frightened from where he had shoved her and caused her to fall, or any single moment after that. He hadn’t expected her to say anything. He had hoped that she wouldn’t, especially after he _had_ and it had broken everything. He had spent so many years reminding himself, like a futile daily affirmation, that nothing had happened, that he had never considered that Chloe had been struggling beneath the same burden, too afraid and ashamed to speak of it, even to him. 

Beside him, she shifted, and asked quietly, “Is that why you didn’t say anything about the polaroids?”

Monty’s lips parted in surprise and the small furrow of a confused frown creased the bridge of his nose. 

“What, like a payback thing?” he asked, and when she only looked at him, no accusation in her gaze, just waiting, he shook his head. “Fuck. _No_.” He insisted, lowering his casted arm to his lap so that he could turn and meet her gaze. “I couldn’t tell you-“ He hesitated, searching for the right words. He had expected to have to endure this conversation at some point, to explain his motivations, to tell her why he had let her down, but had never considered that it would be in this context. “I didn’t say anything because, if I could choose not to know what happened, even just not to be sure, that’s what I would want.” He looked at her, directly and earnestly. “And I couldn’t take that choice away from you.”

It sounded feeble and selfish and nonsensical, once he heard the words aloud, but it was true. 

And Chloe, always willing to accept being hurt, especially by him, only nodded her understanding. 

For a moment, they lapsed into silence, and Monty turned his back to the wall once more, resettling his arms on his knees. He felt exhausted – couldn’t even remember a time now when he hadn’t felt tired – but he knew that it wasn’t finished. 

This was his punishment, for thinking that, somehow, he could be friends with Chloe and friends with Bryce at the same time. That he could belong to one and still love the other. For hoping that, just once, things might work out. Maybe not fairly, because nothing was _fair_ , no one was offering him lifelines like Alternative Strategies and Solutions sessions or diversion programs, not when it was easier to just send a letter to his parents or suspend him when he fucked up, sending him home to deal with the consequences back at the little green house, alone. 

Nothing was fair. Nothing worked out. 

“Does anyone else know?” Chloe asked, barely above a whisper. 

He shrugged, muttering the response. 

“I told my parents.” 

She didn’t need to ask how that had gone. It was a small mercy, considering her next question. 

“Is it why you tried to hurt yourself?”

Monty thought he should have expected it to come up, eventually. She had asked him outright, at the time, or as close to directly as she could, where they sat in the back seat of her step-father’s truck, driving dark roads to a destination neither of them knew. He had felt her eyes on him, tracing what she could see of the black bruise that curved underneath his jaw in the dark of the truck’s cab, even from the fortified place that he had hollowed out deep inside of himself and had been occupying for months at that stage. The bruising and what he had done to cause it felt as unimportant and far away as her concern, at the time. 

And, even though they had made light of it at the time, part of him had known, when she looked at the noose he tied in the passenger seat as she drove the Wrangler to Jessica Davis’s house, that the light-hearted question she asked was a desperate attempt to push away the far darker one on her mind. 

As if determined to hurt them both by acknowledging it, or maybe just to take some of the burden of the pain she imagined he carried onto herself, Chloe asked softly, “Where did you do it?”

Monty lifted his chin, nodding toward the handle on the back of the bedroom door. 

“There.”

Chloe inhaled sharply and held it, her eyes fixed on the door, less than a handful of feet away from where they sat. After considering the implications of the simple answer for a moment, she sighed, her voice unsteady and underlined with horror. 

“Jesus, Monty. You sleep right here, next to-“

She cut herself off, unable to articulate what he had done any more clearly. 

Monty just lifted his shoulder in a shrug. 

Old memories were hardly the most monstrous thing he had learned to sleep in the vicinity of. 

Chloe’s teeth sunk into her lip, and she bowed her head, her hands twisting tightly together around her knees. In the quiet, he could hear the tremble in her breath, and worried that she might have succumbed to the pain of sharing the truth between them before he did, her armour less battle-scarred than his, her tolerance less polished and worn-in over time. He swallowed guiltily, realising that in an effort to be straight-forward and honest, he had been flippant and careless, and had hurt her more than she could withstand. 

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, heartbreak cracking in every word. “For all the times I should have said something, or done something and I didn’t. I’m sorry I let you down.”

Monty watched Chloe let go of the tight grasp she had wrapped around her knees, lowering them to sit cross-legged beside him. For a moment, her hands rested in her lap, but instead of twisting together tightly, the way that he had seen her do a thousand times before, an unconscious, anxious reaction that had been habit as long as he had known her, she pressed the palm of one hand against her stomach, as if she felt nauseous.

And he realised, then, what she was trying to do.

When she had texted him, saying that she needed to talk, he had expected it to be tied to the polaroids, and what he had known, and what he had or hadn’t done. He had anticipated that it was wrapped up in Bryce, and their relationships with him, and with everything that had happened, not just in the last few weeks, but for years, since they had become tangled with one another. He had thought that she might attempt to clear the air, the secrets and betrayals between her and Bryce highlighting the same cracks and flaws that existed between them. But he hadn’t really understood the purpose. Not until now. 

The reason why she was probing the unspoken things between them like an old wound, testing, pressing, searching for the weakest and most painful points.

She was looking for the part that would break. 

But she was searching in the wrong direction. She had shied away from allowing that tipping point to be his knowledge of the polaroids, turning instead to all of the ways that she felt she had failed him, the heavy and painful unspoken apologies that she carried as a result, too kind and gentle to do what had to be done, attempting to draw the blame onto herself, one last time, without realising that it could never work. 

He would have forgiven her anything.

And it hurt, seeing her struggle. To know that she desperately needed to let go of the debris of their friendship, the scrap of what remained of that fragile, simple little lifeboat that they had both been clinging to for years, long after it had been battered into shards and smashed against the rocks. They continued to persevere, even as the tides around them shifted and attempted to tear them in different directions, breaking apart the tiny piece of what they had left, their fingers torn and bleeding from the effort to hold on through storms and freak waves and the cruel, impersonal fury of the sea dragging at them, their tight grasp on its frail remains crumbling its edges and destroying it further, so that years after they should have let it go, it strained to support them. 

If one of them didn’t relinquish their hold, both of them would slip beneath the surface and drown.

Watching Chloe’s fingertips flex anxiously in the fabric of her sweater where her hand was pressed to her abdomen, Monty knew – it had to be him.

As much as Chloe recognised it, the undeniable truth of what had to be done, she couldn’t bring herself to hurt him. 

Not the boy she had known for over a decade, the boy with the missing front teeth and the pink plastic teacup, the boy with the skateboard and the coil of jasmine tucked behind his ear, the boy with the black bruise slung beneath his jaw and the patchwork scar.

She was the only person who had ever known him and hadn’t hated him for it. 

And now, he had to show her what he had been trying to hide from her for years - that he wasn’t that boy any more. 

He was the black thing.

Monty had described the monster to her, years ago, when they had lay on his mattress together one night, him closest to the door and her closest to the window, on their sides with their backs pressed together. At first, when the nightmares had started, the monster had fed on all of the bad things that happened. Like black, razor edged ribbons, it plucked from the air every painful thing that someone said about him or to him, and drew it inside his chest to slice and coil around his insides. Every hateful word or look from his father. Every time his mother turned away, or acted as if she couldn’t see him. Every physical wound. Every blow. Every fear. All of them drawn inside into a rotting, bleeding tangle, until his insides turned black and contorted and horrifying, and then everything else began to, as well. 

Later, it wasn’t the things that other people did to him, that fed the black thing. 

The monster was made of and fed by the things he did to other people. 

The things he didn’t tell Chloe, because she was the only person who saw the boy and not the beast and, selfishly, he wanted to cling to that.

But it was hurting her, now. Had been hurting her, for some time. 

He had to let her see.

He had to let her go.

“I touched Courtney Crimson,” he said, and Chloe looked at him, her eyes widening with surprise. Monty kept his attention focussed forward, determined not to be distracted or dissuaded by the reactions registering in her expression as he explained, haltingly, at first, “Last year. At the Winter Formal. On her leg, under her dress. She was gossiping, and I hoped that she might tell people about it, because the guys were making jokes about how I could never get a girl to put out after a dance.”

Wanting to be like the other guys – acting like he was – was one thing. But there was no love lost between Courtney and Chloe, who had been academic rivals since they met, each determined to leave the more impressive legacy at Liberty, and who treated one another with the thinnest surface level respect. 

He had to aim closer. 

“I hid a dead rat in Zach’s sports bag,” he continued, admitting to the ways he had taken her plan, designed to protect them both, and twisted it into something dark and dangerous and horrifying, that she hadn’t intended, that served his own goals more than anything else. “And I kicked the shit out of Clay Jensen for releasing those tapes.” Monty paused, sinking his teeth into his lip and shaking his head. “I broke into his house, and stole a gun and a phone from Justin. I wanted to destroy it, the phone, because it had a copy of one of your polaroids on it.” He thought he felt Chloe flinch beside him, the loop of her arms around her knees tightening involuntarily, and forced himself onwards. “Justin showed it to me, the morning before he showed up at school. He didn’t know it was you, but I did. He was trying to figure out where it was taken, so they could report it. But I wouldn’t tell him.”

In the quiet moment as he paused, positioning the next target, Monty heard the tremble in Chloe’s breath, and clenched his jaw.

“I sent Alex the gun.” He pressed on. “I wanted him to try to hurt himself again. He threatened me, and I wanted him gone.” Monty took a breath, considering, before admitting aloud what he hadn’t even admitted to himself, until now. “I would have rathered him dead than let him ruin my life.”

And the last thing. 

The weight that had been dragging at their legs beneath the churn of the water, trying to pull them under as they clung to each other and the pathetic, broken thing left between them, their grip so tight and desperate that it left scratches and bruises.

“I saw what happened to Hannah Baker. In the hot tub. I saw what Bryce did to her.” Monty looked at Chloe, watching the hurt and horror well in her eyes. “I didn’t report it. I’m not going to report it.” He insisted, clearly. “I’ve seen him do things to other girls. Spike their drinks. Feed them more alcohol or drugs than they can handle. Make them feel guilty, so that they don’t blame him afterwards.” He shook his head, turning his face away from her. “But I won’t turn him in. I can’t. Not ever.”

Chloe looked at him, her eyes dark and sad. 

It hurt, because he knew that, long after everyone else had given up, if they had ever even bothered to try at all, she had held out hope that the boy he had been still existed somewhere beneath all of the armour and scar tissue that he had accumulated over the years. And he had let her, because he wanted, desperately, to believe it, too. That the outcome wasn’t inevitable. That he hadn’t been doomed to become his father even before Bryce had found him and he had twisted and broken and reformed himself in a different, monstrous mould instead. 

But it wasn’t true. 

He would choose Bryce. He had to choose Bryce. 

And she shouldn’t choose him anymore. 

Monty let go of the last broken fragment of their friendship, and slipped beneath the waves.

~

There was nothing left to say.

He had done what she couldn’t, and she had let him. 

Chloe took a slow breath and, hardening her resolve, determined for both of their sakes not to break, she turned on the mattress beside him, climbing to her knees, and slid the window open. 

“Just, uh-“ he paused when she glanced down at him, a small frown creasing his forehead. He didn’t look at her, his eyes on his hands where they hung over his knees. “Please don’t hate me.”

Chloe’s expression softened at her own words, extended hesitantly and years ago, murmured back to her. She reached for him with her spare hand, tipping his face upwards with her fingertips beneath his chin, and leaned to drop a kiss on the freckles that dotted his nose; a chaste goodbye to a little boy.

“I could never hate you.”

Promising herself that she wouldn’t look back, Chloe climbed from the window, and slid it closed behind her. 

~

_That’s when she said – I don’t hate you, boy  
I just want to save you while there’s still something left to save_

_That’s when I told her – I love you, girl  
But I’m not the answer to the questions that you still have_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It wasn't the hardest in terms of content, but in the context of letting these two go, it was pretty difficult to write this chapter, and I have no one to blame but myself!
> 
> Thank you to comfortwriter28 for the beta checking and the hours of chats. I know that this one was no walk in the park. Anyone who isn't already, I would very much recommend checking out [ 28's fics ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/comfortwriter28/pseuds/comfortwriter28), which I have the utmost pleasure of beta reviewing :)
> 
> Next up is Bryce's last chapter. I realise he's not a fun read, so it includes the functional end or at least recalibration of his relationships with each of the other three prior to his ultimate demise, from their POV's, and also one last interaction with one of my other faves, Nora. It just needs a final edit, so should be up in the next day or two.
> 
> And then we'll finish with Justin, which I'll hopefully have up by early-to-mid next week, as I'm a bit wary of my little miss showing up ahead of schedule!
> 
> Thank you, as always, for reading and for your kudos, comments and support <3


	24. Only Decent Human Left

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A summary of the state of Bryce's relationships with Monty, Chloe and Justin, leading up to his death.

In some ways, Bryce had always felt alone.

Often not physically. Despite that, frequently enough, he was allowed to roam the hallways and rooms of the large, sprawling homes he had grown up in unaccompanied, left to his own devices; it went deeper than that. Even when he was surrounded by people - on the football field amongst his teammates with the adulated crowd roaring his name, in the thick of a party that stretched from the sweeping front driveway to the pool house, walking the halls of Liberty, where he couldn’t even move between classes without someone trying to catch his eye, hoping for a smile or a wink, some sort of acknowledgement from their king – sometimes, he felt disconnected. 

He felt like he belonged, both in the sense that he was exactly where he was supposed to be, and as if he were owned by those around him, his public persona the property of all of the people who looked up to him at Liberty; but he never felt like one of them. It wasn’t uncomfortable, exactly. He had grown used to it, over time, and it wasn’t a sensation unique to Liberty – even in his own family, sitting with his parents at the dining table, or posing for a family portrait, his father’s hand resting heavy on his shoulder, he felt the same way – but it was a distracting thought, niggling beneath every smile and wink and joke. 

Most of the time, Bryce tried to use it to his advantage. He saw and realised things about other people that they were blind to in one another, just as they were oblivious to the chasm that existed between them and him, beneath what was visible on the surface. There were the obvious things that set them apart – his wealth, his privilege, his relative freedom, from his parents and from consequence – and those were easy to wield to his own benefit, because no one cared if he did it. The other differences – the ones that were easier to hide but hurt to acknowledge – were the things that they could do, that he couldn’t. Things that couldn’t be fixed with money or access, or the goodwill generated by his surname alone. The connections that they were able to form with one another, without ever even seeming to try. The way they felt about other people, their ability to picture themselves in someone else’s place, to imagine their circumstances and their hardship, to care. 

Bryce couldn’t understand it, and he felt broken because of it. 

He wanted to be one of them, and he wasn’t. 

Hillcrest was different.

Bryce _was_ one of them. Or he should have been. 

It was exactly the sort of place his father had always insisted that he belonged, amongst the children of families like his own, the kids of lawyers and doctors and senators, hedge-fund managers and investment bankers, old money, most of them, and accustomed to the same worlds he was. Or perhaps not, Bryce realised, quickly. Perhaps he had resisted participating in those circles for too long, preferring the natural advantage of wealth and circumstance to fill in the gaps that he couldn’t bridge with any instinctive ability to create friendships and connections with others, and he had never learned how to play on an equal field, without those tools available to him. 

Although, that didn’t feel like it.

What it felt like, frustratingly, hurtfully, was a deliberate effort to bar him entry, to keep him on the outside, to refuse him not only the place of privilege and adoration that he had grown accustomed to, which he could have learned to deal with, over time, but to reject him in all things, casting him out in a manner so coordinated and thorough that no matter where he looked or pressed or attempted to slip through unnoticed, someone was there to shove him back. 

Sometimes literally, as the bruises on his face attested to.

A lot of the time, it felt supremely unfair. 

Bryce acknowledged that he hadn’t treated everyone as equals – that was just the way of the animal kingdom, the hierarchy and natural order of things – but he had never been a bully. He didn’t pick on kids like Tyler Down, even though the guy gave him the fucking creeps. From where he stood, there was nothing to be gained from grinding someone like that even further into the low and dirty place that they already occupied. He didn’t go around shoving other kids into lockers to make himself feel bigger or stronger. He had never needed to. 

To be on the receiving end of that treatment, now, felt like an unearned punishment. 

And it was terrifying. 

Because there was nothing he could do about it. 

All of the power he had once had, had been given to him by others. 

Without it, he had nothing.

~

**Monty**

The lights in the emergency department waiting room felt like bleach, burning his retinas, although maybe that could have just been shame and frustration at the fact that his eyes wouldn’t stop watering, no matter how many times he swiped roughly at them with the bruised knuckles of his right hand, or berated himself for the weakness - _stop it, you fucking pansy-ass faggot. You can take a fucking hammer to the face and not this?_ \- or how many times Bryce went back to the window of the nurse on duty and asked them how much longer, or if there wasn’t anything they could do for the pain now, _would a couple of paracetamol be so much to fucking ask_? ground out from behind a clench-jawed smile. 

With a frustrated sigh, the other boy returned to his seat at Monty’s left – chosen strategically to keep anyone else from sitting there and bumping his injured arm – and shook his head.

“Fucking public hospitals, man.”

Monty felt compelled to apologise - to repeat the exchange that they had already cycled through numerous times while around them, people coughed and groaned and vomited into plastic sick bags - that Bryce didn’t need to stay. 

Actually, he would sort of prefer that he didn’t. 

More than the gut-churning pain, the feeling of the bones in his shoulder and arm grinding against one another in ways that they were not designed to with every small movement, more than the knowledge that, at some point, he was going to have to let somebody do something about it, and it was going to _hurt_ ; he was preoccupied by the thought of Bryce being there to see the rest. Not just his physical weakness, which he hated having to reveal to anyone at all, but the proof that he _was_ the coward the other boy thought him. The patchwork quilt of boot-prints that spread from his shoulder to his knee, betraying the defensive position he had curled down into to bear them, sure to be exposed once they were finally invited through the doors that the people around them coveted, their collective gaze flicking hopefully in that direction every time they swung open, praying that it was finally their turn to be seen. 

And for all of it – the watercolour impression of black, purple and blue along his right side, the leftover tawny stain from his father’s hammer, the searing, tight tangle of his displaced left shoulder and the grinding misalignment of the bones in his arm – all he had to show in return was one set of swollen knuckles beginning to darken to shades of red and purple. A pathetic trophy for the one and only time he had thrown a desperate, wild, thoughtless punch in return. Not because he had wanted to hurt his father – despite everything, he hadn’t ever really wanted that – just an instinctive, animal response to being in pain and trapped and afraid.

Part of him felt compelled to ask Bryce to leave – to apologise for having contacted him in the first place and implore him to just please, _please_ go – before the other boy saw any of it. He didn’t expect – didn’t _want_ \- Bryce’s pity or compassion. Bryce had rarely offered either in the time that they had known each other, at first taking his cues from Monty and treating the cuts and bruises with the same casually careless attitude that Monty himself took, and later, occasionally extrapolating that further, from disregard to a source of amusement, ridicule, or chastisement, depending on the circumstances. 

And still, the other boy was here, and made no indication that he planned to leave.

It had been almost two weeks since they had last spoken, and in that time, all that had passed between them, flowing steadily in one direction as Monty attempted to avoid the other boy, had been increasingly furious and vicious texts and voicemail messages over the box of polaroids, and then every other accusation and failing that had ever occurred between them as Bryce’s ire grew at the lack of response. He was a coward and an idiot and a piece of shit, didn’t he understand how dangerous that missing box was, when Bryce was about to go to trial to face felony sexual assault charges? He was no better than Justin, that little junkie, son-of-a-whore, white trash mutt, who had proven his capacity for betrayal to be cruel and boundless. They were no brothers of his. 

Honestly, Monty hadn’t expected Bryce to even answer the phone. Perhaps, if it hadn’t been Chloe who had called, he wouldn’t have. 

But he had. And he had shown up, forehead creased with concern, and helped Monty up from the ground, not commenting on any of the involuntary grunts or whimpers of pain that he failed to bite back, carefully loading him into the passenger seat of the Rover and reaching across his lap to buckle his seatbelt, his touch thoughtful and gentle. On the drive to the hospital, even as they wound around the frustrating diversions set up in the parking lot to facilitate the demolition project, Bryce had said nothing of his avoidance, or his betrayal, levelled no accusations about what he believed he had or hadn’t done, or commented on the fact that he had attempted to flee to Chloe, despite that their connection, and their attempt to hide it, had caused so much tension between them. He had helped Monty from the car, and into the waiting room, answering the questions from the triage nurse that Monty’s pain-clouded mind couldn’t quite untangle, and had waited at his side for hours.

And he hadn’t asked for anything. 

Roiling with the nauseating waves of pain that washed through him at random intervals, Monty felt guilt and relief and confusion and terror. For having involved Bryce, despite having no other fathomable option. For what it would cost him – not just financially, because he had no insurance and no idea how he was going to cover whatever amount was stamped on the bottom of the invoice they would hand him when he was discharged. For the fact that, despite everything, the other boy had his back when he needed it, in a way that he hadn’t really had Bryce’s, not if he was honest about what really motivated his protection of the other boy, not since the trial had started and maybe not even before that. For the anxious dread that, at some point, maybe not now, maybe not even any time soon, but eventually, Bryce’s asking price – what he expected in return – would be made clear, and it would be cripplingly heavy, and non-negotiable. 

Cradling his left wrist gently in his right hand in a near useless effort to stabilise his arm, Monty watched the woman sitting opposite them, an infant swaddled tightly in a blanket held to her chest while she attempted to comfort two children under the age of six, one groaning and clutching their stomach, the other, apparently along for the visit for no reason other than lack of alternative supervision, attempting to curl up on the seat beside her with their head on her thigh and sleep, dressed in pyjamas despite that it was almost midday. He wondered what time they had arrived – how long they had been waiting, because they had already been situated there when he and Bryce had sat down – and whether the aqua hijab that the woman wore, not very different in shade to Liberty Tigers blue, had anything to do with it. When she glanced up at him, apparently feeling his attention on her, he looked away quickly.

“De la Cruz?”

“Fucking hallelujah,” Bryce muttered as he twisted in his seat toward the double door entrance to the emergency ward, where a tired-looking doctor in scrubs looked around, the file he had read from in one hand. Bryce stood and turned to offer his hand to Monty.

Standing on his own, clenching his jaw in the moment that everything grabbed and ground together and _hurt_ as he moved, Monty shook his head. 

“You don’t have to-“

Bryce cocked an eyebrow, cutting him off. 

“Come on, brother. I’m here,” he said, and his tone was so earnest, it felt like he meant it. “I’m staying.”

Monty glanced at the woman and her children, guilt like a boot to the stomach, and allowed himself to be guided toward the doors by the hand that Bryce settled on his shoulder. The prickle of discomfort at the close contact was almost entirely eclipsed by the searing pain that radiated from his injured arm and the snatch of panic in his chest as they followed the doctor through the doors and into the ward. 

Somehow, even though it seemed dangerous to consider it, he felt as if Bryce meant the touch as a comfort.

And in a way, it was, although it didn’t go far to calm the frantic pace of his heart, thundering like a stampeding animal in his chest. 

The last time he had been in an emergency room, he had been half-dragged and half-carried through almost identical doors, the lower leg of his jeans shredded and his sneakers leaving bloody imprints on the linoleum behind him.

The ward was chaotic – multiple family members involved in a single-vehicle accident in various states of disrepair, a pregnant woman hooked up to some sort of monitor that made sounds like an underwater drumbeat while she sweated and groaned, a homeless man dressed in a dirty jacket who looked like he had taken a nap a little too close to the train tracks, his arm and leg bloody and misshapen, although he seemed entirely calm, sucking down breaths from the mask pressed over his face, and two men under escort by sheriff’s deputies, still seething and swearing at one another from their respective bays, despite that each wore handcuffs and one looked as if he was still bleeding from fresh stab wounds. Monty dropped his gaze to the linoleum, allowing Bryce to steer him in along the route that the doctor took to the available bay on the far side of the ward. 

The process was impersonal and brusque. He sat on the edge of the rubber mattress on a gurney and answered questions about his name and age, his address and social security details, and eventually his injuries. The nurse who took over from the on-duty doctor recorded vitals – blood pressure, heart rate, temperature – and clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth as she did a basic visual assessment of his shoulder and arm before announcing that they were going to need to cut his t-shirt off and replace it with a hospital gown before sending him down to the Radiology department for x-rays. 

Monty wanted to say something. To tell her that, what she was going to see underneath, it was fine and he didn’t want her to do anything about it. Just sort out his shoulder and his arm and let him go. To ask her to promise not to call anybody, not to ask any questions, to just leave him alone. To request that she make Bryce leave, or at least stand on the other side of the curtains that cordoned off the small area, instead of right by the bed, his arms folded over his chest, his brows furrowed with concern. Instead, he just nodded, and tried to hold still while she ran a pair of surgical scissors along his spine, from the hem to the collar, slicing a clean, straight line up the middle of his Liberty Tigers t-shirt. 

While the nurse slid the fabric loose, working carefully to slip it free of his injured arm, Monty stared at his sneakers and clenched his jaw and tried his best to pretend that neither of them were there. 

“OK,” the nurse said slowly from somewhere over his right shoulder, concern obvious in her tone although she tried to press it down to something smooth and calm, that he might find less alarming. “You want to revise that pain scale you gave the doctor?”

Monty shook his head and waited for her to leave, keeping his head down so that he could feel Bryce’s gaze on him, but didn’t have to witness it. After a moment of making notes, the nurse slipped from the bay, pulling the curtain most of the way closed, and Bryce leaned forward to watch her through the small gap at the edge of the material, as she crossed to the bank of desks and computers at the centre of the ward, where she reached past one of her colleagues to pick up the handset of a phone, her brows drawn together in a troubled frown as she spoke in undertones to the person on the other end of the line. 

Bryce sighed, shaking his head. 

“Dude.”

Monty pressed his lips into a hard line and placed his right hand over his face, terrified in that moment that his resolve, cracked and frayed and trembling, would crumble at the sorrow he was certain he could hear in the other boy’s voice. _Don’t_ , he wanted to insist, _don’t make me feel like you care. I don’t want you to. I swear, I don’t_. 

But he was terrified.

The only things that came of that phone call were worse than this. Police, CPS, questions and investigations, being taken away from here, which should have been what he wanted – once, maybe, it had been – but to some place worse, a place where he had no family and no friends, no team and no brothers, no Liberty, no sports, no future. Just a bed and a roof over his head for six-odd months, and then he didn’t even know what. What happened when you aged out of the system, an eighteen-year-old ward of the state, with nothing left but a hospital emergency department bill that you had no way of paying, and all of it was because of a fucking letter about a vandalised baseball field?

The terror was so cold and violent and huge that it felt as though he would rupture his insides and break his bones trying to contain it. 

“The fuck am I gonna do, now?”

Monty felt Bryce’s hand on his knee, firm and reassuring, the way that he would reach over from the driver’s seat of the Rover after a baseball match when he had missed a game-changing catch or got another D on a History quiz. 

“It’s alright, man,” the other boy said, calmly and certainly. “I got you. Just let me think on it for a minute.”

Monty couldn’t be certain if what he was being thrown was a life preserver to assist him to keep his chin above the water or an anchor that would drag him to the bottom of the sea, but he had no other option but to grasp it with both hands. 

Bryce waited for him in the emergency ward bay, leaning against the edge of the gurney and watching the other patients thoughtfully, while the nurse helped Monty into a hospital gown, tying it lightly at the back, before taking him down to the Radiology department for imaging. It took some time for the results to be reported back the ward, and after relative silence from the nurse, who looked at him openly every time their eyes met as they moved between departments and as she assisted the radiologist to position his arm and shoulder for imaging, as if inviting him to speak if he felt comfortable to, the fact that Bryce had questions, and answers, when she left them in the curtained bay to wait, was a strange sort of relief. 

“How close are you to doing time?”

Monty, distracted by the residual pain of having to shift his arm and shoulder into position for x-rays to be taken, blinked at the unexpected question, shaking his head as he tried to form a response.

“Like, juvie?” he asked, and lifted his right shoulder in a shrug, wincing at the little pull of tension in his left shoulder. “I’ve only got misdemeanours on record. But I’ve been off probation since before Winter break.”

The last charge on his record – “unlawful taking of a vehicle”, otherwise referred to in shorthand as joyriding – had been bargained down to a misdemeanour, attracting community service and a deferred probationary sentence that had since expired. The sheriff’s department had been able to prove that he had been in the Bronco, but not that he had been the one to take it, drive it, or wreck it. And despite that he had steadfastly insisted that he didn’t know the person who had, barely suppressing a satisfied smirk at the disbelieving faces of the deputies as he described an entirely fabricated drunken encounter with strangers at the navy pier that night, they had to admit when their hands were tied, and allowed his assigned public defender to bargain the charge down. 

“What about your dad?” Bryce asked, plainly, as if discussing the criminal record of a parent were as commonplace as chatting about sports or the weather. “Would he be looking at prison for a simple assault charge?”

Monty realised that, in all of the frantic churn of worrying about what might happen next, he hadn’t even considered what the repercussions might be for his father. 

“I don’t know. I don’t think so,” he shook his head, as if he might be able to shake his thoughts into place and come up with some kind of intelligible response. “It’s been a while since the sheriff’s department picked him up.” Most of the time, these days, someone called him to do that. “The last time would have been, maybe a drunk and disorderly? Back around Christmas time.”

Bryce nodded, considering.

“Look,” he said, reasonably. “That nurse has probably already called CPS. And I know that’s not what you want. I don’t want that for you either, man.” Bryce reached to grasp his elbow, squeezing reassuringly. “I can’t make it go away. But you can use this.” The other boy ran his hand down his arm to his hand, where his firm grip sent a twinge of pain across his swollen and bruised knuckles. “Tell them you two got into a fight. Tell them you started it, that you threw the first punch. You might both end up with assault charges, but they can’t make out a case to remove you, if you don’t let them.”

It was frighteningly, morbidly simple. 

And even though Monty was a shitty liar and had no way of knowing if his father would willingly play along – maybe, from his perspective, a potential jail sentence on child abuse charges was a fair price for someone to finally take him away someplace where he was not his parents’ problem any more – he accepted that it was the best option he had. 

“OK,” he agreed, without any further question, gratitude and relief sweeping hesitation into the back corner of his mind, where he could consider it later. “Thanks, man. I don’t even-“ he stumbled for the words, residual pain and panic rattling every coherent thought as he tried to express it. “I can sort out the rest. Like, a payment plan for the bill, and-“

“Don’t even sweat it, brother,” Bryce waved him off with a casual hand, and then paused, considering. “But I am going to need you to do something for me.”

Monty nodded, automatically.

“Yeah, man. Of course.” He said. “Anything.”

Bryce mirrored his nod, his voice low and serious. 

“I’m going to need you to tell me what you’ve been doing these last few weeks,” he said. “Starting with what really happened to the headlight on the Rover when you drove Chloe home.”

~

Afterwards, Bryce had been more angry at the other boy than he could ever remember being in the years that he had known him. Despite that the Liberty trial was over by then, the not-guilty verdict handed down, that only made things worse. Maybe without interference, the trial would have gone the other way, and if it had, maybe Jessica and Justin wouldn’t have felt driven to come after him, instead. 

As he always was, Monty was frustratingly clueless and unfailingly insistent on his loyalty, throughout. And Bryce had made him prove it by facing up to police questioning, although not without the safety of sending his lawyer along with the purpose of filtering the other boy’s interactions with the sheriff’s department, who had suspected Bryce himself of many of the acts of harassment until Jensen and his merry little band of social justice warriors had seemed to figure out the truth and reported as much. In the end, it had all fizzled to nothing.

Well, nothing except the searing sense of betrayal that burned Bryce like a brand. 

He had lost count of the number of times he and Monty had had the same conversation over the course of the trial, until he had grown tired of insisting that the other boy leave it alone, just let it be, like he couldn’t get it through his fucking skull that Bryce was not, and had never been, in any real danger during the court proceedings against the school. Even when that little idiot Jensen had released the tapes online, had tried to turn him over to the court of public opinion when he felt as if the justice system were failing, there had been no real risk. Bryce didn’t need witnesses to be persuaded not to testify against him – he didn’t even need to worry about the truth – he had lawyers and money and influence to deal with that. 

It had been a relief, mostly, to be able to cut himself free of the weight of the other boy’s dogged loyalty, turning to Monty in that empty classroom after he insisted that they needed to do something about Tyler Down’s idiotic determination to claim responsibility for vandalising Walker Field, and telling him that they were done. 

The other boy had looked at him, as if it was a surprise to him that Bryce couldn’t understand the position he was in, the baseball season cancelled, on top of missing out on a spot on the senior varsity wrestling team, unable to meet the fitness requirements in time for qualifying meets as a result of the injuries to his shoulder and arm. Bryce could just imagine how that conversation had gone down. He figured that Bodhi, ex-Liberty wrestling champion who, to the surprise of no one, hadn’t been picked up by any colleges for a scholarship placement on the basis of his father’s criminal record, but had managed to upgrade his career path from hardware store sales clerk to assistant high school wrestling coach, probably felt sorry for the other boy, maybe even saw the same sort of hopeless in his circumstances as he had in his own. 

Bryce understood perfectly fine. He just didn’t care. 

At that point, he hadn’t even cared about the hospital bill he had covered for Monty with his credit card, or making sure that the other boy paid him back for the expense. His parents were too busy alternating between arguing and ignoring each other by that point to question him on the expense anyway. 

He just wanted to be done, with all of it.

Hillcrest was meant to be a new start. A place where he could be who he was, and be accepted for it. Not held aloft with all of the burdens and expectations that that came with, but just to be one of them. Because they were all like him. 

Or at least, they were supposed to be.

Or they _were_ , which he suspected, and they just hid it better than he could, anymore, after the trials had paraded his life in front of the entire county for judgement. 

Bryce had never felt connected to his peers or community before – not really – but within weeks of starting at Hillcrest, it became something else entirely. Not a disconnection, but an intentional, cruel banishment from where he should have fit in. Where he should have belonged. And none of those tools or tricks that he had spent years learning and honing could help him. His parents were still at the upper end of the scale in terms of wealth amongst his peers, but no one around him struggled. No one had a need that they couldn’t meet themselves. In fact, many of them didn’t have any _needs_ at all, their lives built with such unshakeable stability that every requirement was met, and their time was instead spent on satisfying their fickle whims and desires. 

Even those things that their wealth and privilege couldn’t provide – loyalty, love, comfort – if they ever felt driven to want those things; Bryce was the last person they would go to for that.

And, frustratingly, achingly, he began to miss the burden of the need of others, which had often felt like a heavy chain around his neck, but now he felt the absence of like a phantom limb. 

As his parents’ marriage crumbled, and his mother moved back into Chatham house with all of the ghosts and horrors of her own childhood, to look after her ailing father, he felt that knee-jerk reaction to lean on those who he had trusted, once, to help him bear that weight. 

But they were all gone.

~

**Chloe**

Chloe wanted to do it right, so she asked Bryce to meet her at Monet’s. 

He had never shied away from having difficult discussions face to face, and although part of her wondered if maybe, that was because he didn’t find _any_ discussion difficult, nothing really reached down that far for him, and it was easier to read and respond to her reactions when she was sitting right in front of him, she wanted to do him the same courtesy. 

And she wanted to prove to herself that she could. 

She would do what she hadn’t been able to do on the stand for Hannah, or Jess, or herself. 

Maybe it was small and insignificant, and maybe selfish, but Chloe felt peaceful as she waited, arriving early so that she could choose the table to the left of the top of the short stack of stairs where she could see the entrance, and ran her finger around the rim of the glass mug that the barista had poured her latte into, drawing a layered love heart in the foam. 

She felt stronger than she ever had, despite being alone. 

Zach had been a great friend, more supportive than she could have ever imagined he would have been, or she would have needed from him, when she thought back to the first time they had met, the afternoon that he had approached their study group in the library and asked, bashfully, as if his varsity jacket and popularity, in that context, cast him as a misfit, if he could join. Part of her wasn’t sure that she could have done any of it without him – worked through her feelings and hesitations, come to a decision, and gone through with it. Probably, between her and her mother, they could have found a way to fund the procedure, if they had to, but having Zach had meant that Chloe didn’t have to put her mother through that, and even after she eventually was able to reimburse him every cent that the procedure had cost – despite his protests – she would never be able to repay how much his friendship had meant to her, over those months. 

And yet, underneath his kindness and his respect for her and his unquestioning desire to be there to support her, Chloe felt the way that he looked at her. The way he always had, hesitantly, sweetly, the way he did most things. She had tried to be as clear as she could be, without overstepping or hurting his feelings, and even still, the next thing that he had asked, after she had told him about leaving Liberty, and her plan to end her relationship with Bryce, was whether he could see her over the summer. 

_Just to hang out_ , she had clarified. 

It was clearly not what he wanted, not quite, but he agreed to it, at her gentle insistence. 

Zach was sweet and kind and humble and he would accept being friends, in the absence of any alternative. 

It hurt, a little, and she tried to push the feeling down, but more than the guilt and regret that she couldn’t be what he wanted her to be, that tiny, lingering undercurrent in their friendship made her miss Monty.

She had wanted to contact him. Sometimes about important things – things that she would have always talked to him about, wanted him to know, the instinct to share with him still ingrained and automatic – and other times driven by guilt. There were questions that she wished she could ask, things she wished she could understand. Why hadn’t he told Bryce about her involvement in their attempts to derail the trial against Liberty, allowing the other boy to believe, or assume, that he had acted alone? Did he still expect to see her in the hallways at school, sometimes, rounding the corner and hoping that she might be there, the way she did him, despite that the thought was ridiculous, in an all girls’ school? Did he catch himself almost sending her a meme or joke that he thought she would find funny, because no matter how logical the action seemed, she couldn’t bring herself to delete his number, or the long history of texts between them? Did he leave the latch of his window unlocked like she did, half-hopeful and half-dreading, but just in case?

The bell over the door chimed, and Chloe looked up, biting the inside of her lip as she watched Bryce look around the space for a moment before spotting her. Without bothering to stop at the counter to order, he headed toward the table, cheek dimpling as he made his way up the stairs. 

“Hey,” he smiled, sliding into the chair opposite her. “It’s good to see you.” He gestured toward her. “You look great, as always.”

It might have made things harder, if it hadn’t been the sort of thing that she expected him to say. She smiled, and nodded, and resisted the instinct to thank him for the compliment. 

He raised a questioning eyebrow.

“Is everything OK?”

Chloe almost felt the urge to laugh, that he read her so easily – or perhaps not, perhaps he had just become so used to her conditioned behaviours that he expected her to react in certain ways, and it was an automatic red flag when she didn’t – that an unacknowledged compliment gave him cause for concern.

“I’m fine,” she assured him, despite that she felt relatively certain that worry for her welfare or state of being was not the reason he asked. “But I need to tell you something, and I need you to please just listen.”

If he hadn’t already been anxious, he definitely was, now. 

Chloe wished that she could feel gratified, that the tables were turned. That, unlike the last time they had sat in this exact spot, when he had brought up the trial, and the polaroids, and the fact that they had never addressed them – the day that he had come within inches of apologising, but hadn’t been able to make himself do it - where their positions had been reversed, physically and emotionally; today, she held the power. It was frightening, and uncomfortable, but she didn’t want to let him see that. 

“OK,” Bryce said slowly, cautiously, setting his clasped hands on the table. “I can do that.”

It was a reasonable response, and the best she could have hoped for, but Chloe still took a slow breath, settling herself into a pattern of steady breathing, counting herself in, the way that she had done when she was small, before she stepped out onto the stage for a ballet recital, or pushed off from the top edge of the half-pipe at the skate park. 

“I don’t want to be in a relationship with you anymore.”

She had practiced the words, in front of her mirror at her vanity in her bedroom, and in the car on the drive to Monet’s. They were the best combination she could come up with, not too short, to be taken as harsh or dismissive, but direct enough that the meaning was clear.

Bryce simply blinked at her, his face blank and still. 

“I know that this isn’t what you hoped for. That you asked me not to give up on you. And I hope that you won’t take it that way, because I don’t want to hurt you, or dishearten you,” she tried to hold his gaze, although her fingers felt unsteady, driven to tighten anxiously, and she traced the edge of her mug instead of allowing them to twist together in her lap, her eyes on his face as she spoke. “If what you really want is to change, and improve, I think that’s a good thing, and I hope that you’ll keep working towards it.” She paused, swallowing, and ducked her head in a small nod. “Without me.”

For a moment, Bryce was quiet, his expression stunned into stillness but the thoughts beneath it racing, unprepared and uncontrolled, careening around and into one another, frantic and puzzled and hurt. 

“Is it because of Zach?” he asked, his blue eyes searching her face, pain and anger brewing behind the frown that creased his forehead. 

Chloe met his gaze directly.

“No,” she answered, clearly and evenly, to be sure that he understood, and couldn’t mistake her meaning. “It’s not. It’s about me.” For the first time, in their relationship, and maybe ever, it felt like the truth. “I don’t want to be in a relationship with you anymore. I want to focus on what I want, and where I want my life to go, and I want to do that on my own.”

Bryce glanced around at the people sitting at the tables nearby, and as Chloe watched his jaw quiver, she thought for a moment that he might break down. She had hoped that he wouldn’t, but she knew that it wasn’t impossible, and had promised herself that, if he did, she would be as polite and firm as she could be. In hindsight, she knew that she had fallen for crocodile tears in the past that she recognised as ingenuine, even as they welled in his eyes. Bryce portrayed emotion masterfully, deploying it in precise measurements and combinations, a morbid sort of alchemy to achieve his goals. It made her wonder, sometimes, if anything he had ever said to her, any way he had ever professed to feel, had been real. 

She hoped that it had. 

Because truly, she felt that she had loved him. 

With a note of bitterness and disappointment, his voice low enough that the people sitting nearby wouldn’t overhear, he asked,

“Is it Monty?”

If she hadn’t expected it, his insistence on casting blame around every other conceivable option before considering that it might actually be him, or, in the alternative, accepting what she had said as the truth – that it was her decision, her choice, what she wanted, for herself – might have been frustrating. 

And if she was honest, it wasn’t a totally unfair assumption. 

Because, in a way, it _was_ Monty.

Or not Monty, but what he had been to her, and what she wanted to preserve of that. 

In the turmoil of the knowledge that, undeniably and terrifyingly, she was pregnant, and the child was Bryce’s, Chloe had hoped that, if she broke her connection with the other boy, or allowed him to do it, as had been the case, cauterising the wound before it became infected and hurt her any further – then maybe, she could do what she had to. If she chose to keep the baby, and raise it as Bryce’s, then she could manage to do so without the heartbreak of having to see Monty, have him in their lives and act as if he hadn’t meant more to her than anyone ever had. Maybe that would have been enough to save herself from the fate of becoming the next iteration of Bryce’s mother, that poised and beautiful but cold and unemotional woman that sat across the table from her when the Walker’s invited her to dinner. And, in the alternative – the path that she had ultimately chosen – if she didn’t keep the baby, and broke the connection between herself and Bryce as a result, because she could fathom no other outcome in the wake of that choice, at the least, Chloe could safeguard what Bryce was to Monty. Not a friend, or a brother, the way that they claimed, but the one person who might be able to keep him falling from the narrow, crumbling path that he walked; the last lifeline that he had left, and desperately needed. 

The person she couldn’t be for him. 

And so, as much as what she did now was for her, in a small way, it was also for Monty. To release Bryce to be the protector he needed, and to remove herself from both of their stories, preserving the memory of the bruised, freckled little waif he would always be, to her. 

Chloe shook her head firmly. 

“No, Bryce. It isn’t,” she said, holding her resolve as his expression twitched with pain as, even to her own ears, it sounded true. “I’m sorry.”

~

Losing Chloe had hurt.

It had hurt more than Bryce had ever expected it could have. 

The illogical part of him, the part that longed to be able to make the kinds of connections that other people were able to make, the part that wanted to be able to love and cherish and care in a way that was separate from desire and control and ownership, had hoped that, maybe, Chloe was the person who he could trust to stand by him, in all things. She had stayed through the trial, through the polaroids and the clubhouse, through the criminal charges brought against him by Jessica and Justin, through his parents’ divorce and his father kicking him out of his home – via handwritten note, no less, banishing him to his mother’s care at Chatham house, like another piece of furniture that he didn’t care if she won in the settlement. 

Part of him had hoped that, even if he wasn’t capable of love, maybe he could learn how, or replicate it convincingly enough that she would stay. 

In the context of all of the other things that had been taken from him – his position at the head of his court at Liberty, his reputation, his family, his friends, his freedom – he supposed that it should have been expected. 

Afterwards, laying on his bed amongst the wreckage he had made of his room, Bryce had wondered if, maybe, he _had_ loved her, after all. 

Perhaps that was why it hurt so badly. 

All he wanted to do was smother that pain, to deny its harsh, twisting grasp on his insides, and the only way he knew how – the only way he’d ever known – was to wash it away with alcohol, sex, and the adoring company of others.

His grandfather’s bar was well-stocked, and his probation was served, rendering any potential consequences for being caught drinking minor and limited to his mother’s growing frustration over him drinking in the house, but it felt pathetic and sad, the idea of sitting by himself by the liquor cabinet, sipping at top-shelf whiskey and wallowing in the very anguish and loneliness that he hoped to chase away. 

Instead, Bryce headed downstairs.

His mother was in the kitchen, humming softly to herself. The oven was preheating, and next to a large ceramic mixing bowl, set on the island counter, she had poured herself a glass of white wine. When she saw him in the doorway, her calm expression flickered, and he thought about retreating, about resigning himself to sitting in the dark room that housed his grandfather’s alcohol collection, decanted into priceless crystal-wear and probably worth more than his tuition to attend Hillcrest, but the moment was fleeting, as her gaze softened, and the corner of her mouth turned upwards, not an invitation, exactly, but an acknowledgement, all the same. 

Bryce slid onto the stool on the opposite side of the island bench, casting his mother a cautious glance. She had been steadfastly honest in her expressions and choice of words, since he had come to live at Chatham, speaking plainly and honestly in all things, rarely bothering to press down her frustration or contempt, or to soften or obscure the things that might hurt him to hear, the way that she had done his whole life, and that neither he, nor his father, nor her own father before that, had ever done for her in return. 

“What’s all this?” Bryce asked, conversationally, as she took a sip from her wine glass. 

“This?” Nora looked down at the bright flesh of the fruit laid out on the chopping board, bloody red plums, almond-pale nectarines and sunny peaches, a bowl of shiny, dark cherries sitting on one side, waiting to be pitted and sliced. “I’m making a stone fruit crumble.” She lifted her shoulders in a shrug beneath the silk shirt that she protected with a simple black apron, tied about her waist. “It’s my turn to host book-club, tonight.” 

Bryce hadn’t known she even belonged to a book-club.

“Oh,” he said, nodding, and lapsed into uncertain silence. Despite living with his mother most of his whole life, they had rarely spoken to one another candidly, Nora ranging from indifferent to hesitant toward him, when he had been young. And then, later, when Bryce was old enough to follow the example of his father, he had done so with dedication, replicating the contempt in his tone, the derision in his body language and choice of words, often placating or dismissive, if he even bothered at all. 

He supposed that it was no wonder, after being abandoned by her husband, on the brink of losing her father, and loaded, unprepared and without warning, with the burden of parenting him, despite that he had chosen to live with his father from the outset of the divorce and had arrived at Chatham as unwillingly as she had received him, his mother had nothing to say to him except the ugly, painful truth, and only when absolutely necessary. 

It was an unexpected surprise when, with some hesitation, but not totally without warmth, she cast him a questioning glance, gesturing toward the waiting bowl of cherries by her chopping board. 

“Would you like to help?”

~

**Justin**

Justin knew, afterwards, that he shouldn’t have called Bryce.

Half-sarcastically, he thought it would have been better to just call Seth and get it over with.

Mostly-seriously, he realised it would have been far better to have done the right thing, the hard thing, and called the Jensens. 

He had never been very good at identifying the right thing; especially when he was terrified, and even more so when he was high. The frantic, junkie part of his brain took over and its instinct was always to lie, to put as much distance between him and the danger and the truth as possible. As usual, it was a concept that thawed later, with hindsight and regret, that everything would have been easier if he had just been brave enough to be rational about it. 

Still, that day after the sheriff’s deputies had arrested him in the alleyway behind Monet’s, Justin had called Bryce. 

Sitting in the passenger seat of the Rover as Bryce drove from the sheriff’s station to the Jensen’s house should have felt familiar, and it did, but not in a comforting way. The smell of the leather seats, his position at Bryce’s side, it felt so frighteningly natural that it filled him with dread. The last time he had seen Bryce, in the gated area beside the pool at the run-down little motel on the edge of town, he had told him that he would kill him, and he had meant it. And now, here he was, as if it were inevitable, like any other state of being was just temporary, unstable and unsustainable, and eventually, he would always find his place back here, quiet and guilty and ashamed, and safe only due to the good grace of Bryce Walker. 

It made him feel sick.

“I heard you’re back on the football team, this year,” Bryce commented, conversationally. The radio was on, but the volume turned down to barely a murmur, and Justin almost flinched at the sound of the other boy’s voice, despite his light tone. “I think we’re scheduled for Liberty’s homecoming game.”

Justin couldn’t be certain if he was meant to take the information – which he had already known – as positive, negative, or otherwise. Part of him thought that it was intended as innocently as it sounded, an attempt at connection, a simple conversation starter. But after everything, even words phrased conversationally, when offered by Bryce, could easily be a challenge, or a threat, or a promise of something worse. Biting the inside of his cheek, Justin held his silence, and simply nodded. 

“Hillcrest sucks,” Bryce volunteered next, after a few blocks of uncomfortable silence, the headlights of the Rover sweeping over quiet suburban streets, the streetlamps overhead strobing over his expression, a complicated combination of frustration, sorrow, and reluctance. “I miss Liberty, a lot.”

Justin wanted to remind Bryce that they had been through all of this – perhaps the other boy had been too drunk, at the motel that night, to remember reeling off his list of petty grievances – but he hesitated. 

The words seemed heavier than a simple statement of reminiscence. Missing Liberty was one thing – a thing Justin could relate to, because through the months in Oakland, and in juvenile detention, he had missed those hallways and classrooms and even that stupid locker he had been assigned in sophomore year that always jammed – but he didn’t think that was what Bryce meant. Liberty had been important to Justin over the last few years, a source of temporary shelter and access to practical and simple conveniences, offering food and somewhere to shower and brush his teeth after a rough night or two, the place where he was accepted as a teammate and a brother, even in those moments when he felt as though he wasn’t one of them at all, not in the way that they thought he was. One day, he thought he might feel sad to leave. Liberty had hosted plenty of horrors, and been connected to some of the worst things that had happened to him and that he had done, but even despite that, he wouldn’t have traded that time for anything. Liberty had given him Jess, and his friends, Zach, and Clay, and the Jensens. 

A family.

For Bryce, Liberty had been the same. A family that he didn’t have at home, because his parents were absent most of the time and didn’t care enough to give him rules or boundaries or their attention when they were. So, he had built his own family, at Liberty, a band of brothers, who always had each other’s backs, who were loyal beyond reproach, who came to mean so much to one another that they were inseparable and strong, but also dangerous and corrupt, as a result. Bryce had sat at the head of all of that, for years, until it was all taken away. 

By Justin – his second in command, his oldest and most loyal friend, his brother.

And despite that Justin had given all of that up, had willingly traded Bryce and the other boys for people that had come to mean more to him than anything else, for Jess, and then Jaime, and then Clay and the Jensens; all it had taken was one phone call – and Bryce was at his side, lawyers and credit card and understanding concern at the ready, like nothing at all had happened. Like, after everything, they were still family.

_Despite everything, you’re still my brother._

Justin had a brother. He had a family. 

They weren’t his, not the way he wished he could make himself feel that they were, but he was theirs, even if he didn’t understand why in the world they would want that – want him.

He didn’t need Bryce.

And yet, here he was.

Justin flicked his gaze toward the street sign at the next corner, trying to gauge how close they were to the Jensen house.

“My, uh-“ Bryce paused, uncharacteristically uncertain in what he wanted to say. “My parents are getting divorced.” He paused, but if he was waiting for Justin to say anything, he didn’t hesitate long, adding, “My dad moved out, without telling me. Just left me a note. So, I’m at my mom’s, now.” Bryce’s silence lasted longer this time, and Justin glanced at him sidelong, noting the hurt that tightened around the other boy’s eyes. “Much to her disappointment.”

Justin knew what the other boy was doing, and it fucking hurt, because, despite that Bryce had already told him these things, he wanted to give the reaction that the other boy was looking for, the sympathy and the understanding that sharing this information was supposed to prompt. He _did_ feel sorry for him. How could he not? He knew rejection and neglect, he knew what it meant to desperately need the affection and care of a parent and to have that withheld, he knew loneliness better than he had ever wanted to, and hoped he would never feel again. He wouldn’t have wished those feelings on anyone. Not even Bryce. 

It felt cruel, and unnatural, and painful, to deny those instinctive reactions. To deny the other boy the comfort that he had offered Justin, for years and years, before everything was broken between them. Although Justin tried to tell himself that it was withdrawal, that the shaking in his fingers and the tightness in his chest, the distant echo of wailing need in the back of his head, was all because of the hours that had passed since his last hit, part of him knew that wasn’t true.

It was withdrawal, for certain. But not from any chemical addiction. 

Even after everything, months apart, death threats, rage and hate and pain and betrayal, Justin realised that he hadn’t detoxed from Bryce.

Maybe, he never would.

Without having to be asked, Bryce pulled up against the curb a few houses down from the Jensens, where the Rover wouldn’t be spotted if Matt or Lainie happened to glance out the window from where they might have been watching a movie, or Clay wouldn’t recognise the car on his way to the house for a snack or a shower. Biting down on his instinct to thank the other boy, or to say anything at all, Justin unbuckled his seatbelt and reached for the door to escape into the dark, quiet street. 

“Justy, wait.”

Justin felt as though the two parts of him – his rational mind and his junkie instinct – were wrestling within him, limbs flailing desperately, knocking against his insides as they fought, buffeting and bruising him, and he paused, the door open and one sneaker already on the asphalt. 

“I don’t want anything to happen to you, man,” Bryce said, and although Justin was mostly turned away from him, his eyes on the warm beacon of the light in the front window of the Jensen’s house across the street, he could feel the other boy looking at him. “Please, let me take care of Seth, if I can.” There was an earnestness in his voice, a pleading that Justin didn’t think he had ever heard before, and it cut him to the core. “Come on, brother. Let me help you.”

Clenching his jaw, his knuckles white, Justin pulled his foot back into the car, and closed the door behind him. 

~

Despite that he had replicated the exact same dragline technique that he had used when they were fourteen, offering a safer alternative than the drugs Justin could source for himself on the streets, Bryce could see that it was ineffective. Justin didn’t need him anymore. Not in the way that he had back then, when he had had literally no other alternatives; his circumstances no longer so dire that what Bryce offered appeared perfect and uncomplicated in comparison. 

_I’ve never had a family_ , Justin had insisted that night, by the motel pool.

_I was your family. For a while._

But not anymore. 

It was enjoyable, the quiet company of working together on opposite sides of the counter, the warmth of the preheating oven nearby, the attentive gaze of his mother as she glanced at him from time to time, watching him pit the cherries and slice them into neat halves, while she pinched together a mixture of flour, ground almonds, rolled oats, honey, and olive oil in the mixing bowl to make a crumble. 

“Why didn’t we ever do anything like this before?” Bryce asked, looking up at his mother with a hesitant smile. “It’s kind of nice.” 

Nora looked back at him, as if considering her response and, as she had reliably done since he had returned to live with her, answered honestly.

“I suppose I didn’t think you would be interested.”

That was fair, and true enough. Up until the moment he had reached for the bowl of cherries, Bryce had been uncertain he would be interested at all, and found himself pleasantly surprised by the simple task and the quiet company. As much distance as had always existed between them – since before he had even been capable of forming memories – and as much time as his parents had spent avoiding the house and each other and him, travelling and working and socialising on an incessant schedule to minimise the time that any of them had to spend together, if there was one thing that had been, not exactly comforting, but constant in his life, it was that, even when he wished he could have turned to his father, that the man would have cared enough to give him his time and attention, when Bryce really needed to be heard, his mother would listen.

Quietly, and without thinking, his eyes on the paring knife that he used to slice the cherries, he said,

“Chloe broke up with me.”

Nora blinked at him, the announcement unexpected, and then lowered her gaze to the bowl of ingredients that she worked between her fingertips, shuttering any further reaction from him. 

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said, and he wasn’t sure that that was true, exactly – in fact, he thought maybe she seemed a little relieved, and that wasn’t surprising, given that she had practically warned him off of going within ten feet of the daughter of his grandfather’s live-in nurse, like he couldn’t have managed to control himself without explicit instruction – but she was polite enough not to elaborate, instead offering, “You’re welcome to stay and join us, if you want company and don’t mind a gaggle of middle-aged women drinking wine and discussing _An American Marriage_.”

It was the type of reaction he excepted – practical and straightforward, one that didn’t require her to disregard her plans, but that offered to make space for him within them, all the same. A little flicker of warmth lit inside him, but it wasn’t quite what he was looking for, not the roaring hearth of those golden times, when he had been king and everything had been good and right and as it should be.

“Thanks,” Bryce said, offering a lopsided smile of amusement, and lifted his shoulder in a shrug. “Actually, there’s a party, a guy from school is throwing. I thought I might check it out.”

His mother cast him a cautious look, and Bryce knew that she didn’t think it was a good idea. And maybe it wasn’t. The cut on his forehead had taken weeks to heal and the bruises on his face, although faded, may as well have been a permanent marking of his status as an outsider at Hillcrest. Even in the casual, alcohol-fuelled setting of a party, even if he was determined to deploy every skill that he had cultivated, to take advantage of the distance from the old stone buildings of the Hillcrest campus to find a way to break through the barriers of his peers, even if all he really wanted was to get drunk and have fun and forget about the fact that his father didn’t want him, Chloe had left him, and everyone else in his life hated him, he would still be that outsider. 

And, if nothing else, that could be dangerous.

Not just socially, another opportunity for his reputation to be smeared and his pride shredded, especially in the type of setting that they all associated with the trial, and the conviction, and his probation. The guys on the team hadn’t hesitated to assault him on school grounds, unprovoked, and had walked away in the face of his injuries and indignation, laughing at his ire, secure in their assuredness of the lack of consequences, in a way that he once had been, but had been proven wrong. Outside, where there was no opportunity for a faculty member or disapproving student to report them, he shouldn’t expect them to treat him any more warmly. 

They were terms that Bryce had never had to consider his actions in before, and he hesitated, his hope deflated. 

“Maybe you could see if one of your friends from Liberty would like to go with you?” Nora suggested, as she arranged the stone fruit in a baking dish. “Introduce them to your new classmates.”

Bryce nodded agreeably, pushing the bowl of sliced cherries across the countertop to her, to be added to the arrangement of fruit.

“Yeah,” he said, slipping from the stool. “Thanks. I might do that.”

_If I had one friend at Liberty_ , he thought bitterly, as Bryce thought, as he headed back upstairs to shower and change, _maybe I would_.

Sitting on the corner of his bed, Bryce thumbed through the apps on his phone. Alex wanted to hook up, having heard that he could provide better juice than that shitkicker Pozzi carried, and although it was a sale and a relationship that Bryce had been carefully, cautiously cultivating, desperation to connect with _someone_ overruling any hesitation over the fact that, not only had Alex hoped and worked to take him down through the Liberty trial, he was now – again - dating Jessica Davis, Alex was reluctant to meet him at the party. Bryce tapped out a quick text, reassuring him that no one who might happen to witness the exchange would care enough to remember or comment on it, then flicked through his contact list, considering. It was a lengthy list, full of names and numbers, random hook ups that he no longer even remembered, guys from sports teams, dealers and working girls and the children of lawyers and senators. 

Amongst them, there was only one that Bryce thought, despite everything, was a certain bet.

Not his first choice – ever – but sure to fill that nostalgic pang he had missed lately, the comforting weight of the need of another, and the reassurance of his ability to fill it. 

He tapped out a fresh text, and hit send. 

_Hey, brother. Long time, no speak. You got plans tonight?_

Bryce watched his phone for a few moments. It would be uniquely humiliating, he thought, to not receive a response, but he felt silly for the notion when, less than two minutes later, the ellipses icon began flashing, and his phone vibrated in his hand, the push notification sliding across the screen a moment before the response appeared. 

**Monty**   
_nah, man. no plans. what’s up?_

Bryce smiled crookedly, cheek dimpling.

_Wanna go to a party?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to comfortwriter28 for beta-checking and chats, especially persevering through this last Bryce chapter. I hope that he was at least a little more bearable, filtered through Monty, Chloe and Justin's perspectives. Plus, Nora!
> 
> Only one more chapter to go before the end of this fic, which will be led by our golden boy, Justin. It's currently in beta-checking, so I hope to have it edited and posted in the next couple of days. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has read, supported and commented on this fic - it's the longest thing I've ever written and finished, and I wouldn't have made it this far without all of your encouragement. 
> 
> I'm looking forward to hearing what you thought of this chapter, and the ending <3


	25. the Skate Park

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter, set in between s3 and s4, as Justin prepares to enter rehabilitation treatment, and considers what has come before, and the people now gone from his life.

The day before he was due to be admitted to the rehabilitation facility, Justin took a drive.

He didn’t have any particular destination in mind when he set out, winding down the windows of the Prius and turning the volume down on the radio so that he could listen to the sounds of the streets as he drove. He just needed to get out of the house for a little while, before Lainie actually burst into tears – her throat bobbing as she tried to swallow them down every time he caught her looking at him – or before Clay asked him for the sixteenth time if he had remembered to pack his toothbrush, like he was suffering under the illusion that Justin’s personal hygiene was somehow worse than his own. Matt was doing his best to make everything seem normal, making them French toast for breakfast (they’d save Lainie’s pancakes for tomorrow morning, their last meal together before he had to be at the facility at ten to check in) and chatting as he browsed the morning news on his tablet, but even that was an attempt to cover over the guilt that he clearly felt for not having noticed the signs of Justin’s relapse before he had admitted it to them all at the dinner table during Thanksgiving. 

Justin felt compelled to apologise but, living with the Jensens, he had come to realise that not every mistake required contrition, or retribution. It had been a strange and difficult lesson, one that required unlearning years of practised behaviour; to accept that, sometimes, it was enough to just be honest, and accountable, and to ask for help. 

Clay had stared at him suspiciously when he had palmed the car keys from the kitchen counter, and Justin had rolled his eyes.

“I just need a little bit of space before I go, man,” Justin reassured him. “Y’know, like – say goodbye to the town, kind of thing.”

Clay had narrowed his eyes, both hands wrapped around a mug of coffee, untouched college pamphlets spread out on the kitchen table beside his laptop - courtesy of his mother, because apparently Clay had little to no motivation to research campuses and course options himself, despite that it seemed to Justin that it should have been easy for the other boy. He was like some sort of super genius or something, his capacity for remembering facts and processing formulas endless.

“You’re coming back though.”

“Yes, Clay,” Justin pinched the bridge of his nose, barely suppressing a frustrated chuckle. “I’m coming back today, and I’m coming back after the program.” He met the other boy’s eyes across the room. “I promise. I’m not leaving. I’m not running. I just need a minute.”

Clay nodded slowly, looking down at the spread in front of him.

“Do you want company?”

Justin couldn’t help but scoff. It sounded far more like a request that he rescue the other boy from his parents’ expectations than an offer to accompany him, and he realised that, over the next few weeks, he was going to miss Clay, miss having a brother at his side, irritating him and looking out for him, more than he wanted to think about. 

“No, dude. I kinda just want some quiet before I have to sit in a room full of strangers and share my deepest, darkest shit.” Justin cocked an eyebrow and smiled softly. “OK?”

Clay looked like he wanted to argue, but shrugged, instead.

“Yeah, OK,” he muttered, his tone a little put out, although Justin had come to learn, living with Clay, that he almost always sounded that way, every sentiment expressed in shades of defensiveness, even when they had nothing to do with the labyrinth of secrets he kept locked away inside of himself. “Just, like, text me, if you need anything.”

Justin cast him a bright, teasing grin and headed for the door, calling over his shoulder.

“Yes, mom!”

It had been a stupid thing to say, because as soon as the words passed his lips, they boomeranged straight back into his chest, a sharp sting of pain marking their impact. Although he tried not to, almost every single day since he had last seen her, Justin had thought of his mother. Some days, he texted her. Some days he tried to call. She never picked up and never replied, never returned any of his voicemails, asking if she was OK. He had called on Thanksgiving and left her a message, telling her that, despite everything, he was thankful that she was his mother, that she had given him this life, and that wherever she was, he hoped that she was safe. He waited, lying awake in his bed in the outhouse that night while Clay tossed and turned and muttered on the other side of the room, but no matter how many times he checked his phone, she hadn’t responded. 

Deliberately, Justin steered the Prius west out of the suburb, heading away from his old neighbourhood, before his junkie attachment to things and people from his old life that hurt him could draw him astray. 

Or, perhaps, just replacing the helpless, involuntary instinct with a slightly safer alternative, as he found himself driving the wide, quiet, leafy streets where Bryce had once lived. 

It had been months since Justin had had any reason to venture into the affluent area that had, in the past, felt almost as familiar as his own neighbourhood, he spent so much time walking its streets. He knew all of the bus routes and half of the neighbours, which ones would raise a suspicious eyebrow at him as he passed and which were susceptible to the bright flash of a Foley smile, offering a wave or a greeting and, in the case of the elderly lady who lived alone in the big house on the corner, might earn him a couple of cellophane-wrapped hard candies from the pocket of her cardigan, if she was out pottering in her garden when he happened by. The Walkers hadn’t lived in the area for some months, now – Bryce’s father moving his new fiancé into some other swanky pad, nearer to the bay, and Nora moving in to the huge old manor house she had grown up in to look after her ailing father. It made Justin feel sort of sad, driving past the house where he had spent at least half of his childhood and teenage years, swimming in the backyard pool, playing video games in the pool house, chatting and cooking with Marisa in the kitchen and sleeping on the camper mattress at the foot of Bryce’s bed. 

Amongst those bright moments… 

– Bryce’s birthday party, the first birthday party Justin had ever been invited to, where he had his photo taken with Captain America’s shield and his face painted as Spiderman, and Nora had let him stay until long after the other kids and the entertainers had left, playing video games on Bryce’s new console, and offered to drive him home afterwards, loading a plastic carrier bag full of boxed-up, left-over party food next to him in the backseat of her luxury SUV,

\- Sitting on a stool at the kitchen bench, watching Marisa make the tallest sandwiches he had ever seen from Christmas lunch leftovers, stacking them with layers of thick slices of roasted turkey and spiced ham and stuffing full of garlic and lemon and pine nuts, and grinning when she smiled at him as she counted out honey-glazed carrots onto the side of the plate, winking cheekily as she shrugged. “OK, one more. You’re a growing boy.”

\- Lying on the camper mattress at the foot of Bryce’s bed, listening to the soft, rhythmic sound of the other boy breathing, calmly and comfortably, as he slept, and thinking about their promise to one another. They would be kings at Liberty, best friends forever, unbreakable and untouchable, because they would always have each other. Justin had never felt so certain of anything in his life

…some were dark…

\- Walking around the empty house, bright and full of mid-morning sunlight, stoned and still half-buzzed and exhausted because sleep, even on the couch in the pool house, was nothing but a stage for his nightmares to play out on, staring up at the framed portrait of the Walker family hung on the wall, displayed boldly and with pride, in a way that no one had ever claimed Justin, not before Bryce.

\- Managing to wrestle out of Bryce’s headlock and shove him out through the door of the pool house, where he stumbled over his own feet and giggled where he lay, amused despite the fury and pain in Justin’s voice as he stood over him, he thought maybe for the first time in his life, and pointed a warning finger at the other boy. “Fuck you. I’m not your fucking bitch, bitch.”

\- Standing at the bottom of the front steps, the gun cocked and loaded in his hand, and Bryce’s words, that had been the undercurrent of everything between them for as long as they had known one another and simply never spoken aloud until that moment. “You should be more scared than you are, Justin.” And realising that while he had been Bryce’s brother, his friend, his family; he had also been his soldier, his possession, and his pet.

…but they were all his – theirs – and Justin wouldn’t have given them up for anything. 

In the driveway, where Bryce would have normally parked the Range Rover when they came home from school or a party, three little girls with dark hair and olive complexions were setting up a lemonade stand. Justin felt like laughing at the optimistic asking price on their sign – five dollars a cup – but he supposed, in this neighbourhood, that was probably near enough to pocket change. It made him think, a little wistfully, back to when he had delivered three-hundred pamphlets into apartment building mailboxes for the princely sum for ten dollars a week. And anyway, it was for a good cause – the sign proclaimed, in orange and purple bubble writing, that all funds would be donated to the California Animal Welfare Association. 

On a whim, Justin pulled the Prius to the curb at the foot of the driveway, and dug through the loose change Clay kept in the cup holder to pay parking fees, scraping together five dollars in coins. Clay would probably be pissed, but Justin figured that if he didn’t tell him about it, he wouldn’t remember by the time he came home after treatment, anyway.

Or maybe he would. Clay, who Justin thought might have forgiven him just about anything, could still hold a grudge over little things like that. 

Justin smirked at the thought as he got back into the car, cup of lemonade in hand. It was a little too sweet, even for him, but he drank a few mouthfuls and set the cup in the now empty cup holder. If nothing else, the strong dose of artificial sweetener left a saccharine coating on his tongue, disguising the coppery, metallic taste that flagged the early onset of withdrawals. He tried not to think about how long it had been since he last had a hit – was trying to break the habit of counting the hours and minutes – and instead reached for his phone, blinking with a notification on the dash.

The Jensen family group chat, which he felt, all at once, incredibly warm but also decidedly strange to have been invited to, had been updated with several new messages while he had been at the lemonade stand.

**Lainie**   
_Alright, boys. Family dinner tonight! Seven PM, as always. Please don’t be late._

**Matt**  
 _Anyone who wants to join me for pasta making lessons beforehand, I’ll meet you in the kitchen at 5.30. Aprons and a wall for spaghetti-throwing purposes will be provided._

He had signed off with a chef emoji. Although Justin’s cheek dimpled with an amused smile, apparently, Clay had not appreciated the dad-humour, his reply flat and unenthusiastic.

**Clay**   
_See you at seven_

As much to rile Clay as anything else, Justin tapped out his contribution.

**Justin**   
_See you at spaghetti class!_

As if he had been watching his phone, monitoring it for Justin’s response, a push notification slid across his screen from Clay almost instantly, and he tapped through to the direct message.

_You OK?_

Justin resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Despite that it felt like a little bit much, it also felt sort of nice, to know that, even when he was safe, even when things were _good_ , better than they had been maybe ever in his life, someone cared enough to ask if he was OK. 

_Yeah, man. I’m good. I’ll see you at dinner_

Justin returned his phone to the dash, took another quick sip of sickly-sweet lemonade, and started the car. 

He followed the curve of the suburb along the edge of the woods as the dense treeline hooped around toward the bay, looking through the windscreen at the hill that led up to the Dempsey’s house. He had last seen Zach the morning after Thanksgiving, when they had met up at the basketball court halfway between their houses, and played a few rounds of horse, complaining good naturedly about their over-full stomachs and the Thanksgiving speeches they had had to sit through during lunch the previous day – Zach at the mercy of his over enthusiastic uncle visiting from interstate, and Justin smiling awkwardly while Matt got a little teary-eyed giving thanks for his _sons_ after one glass of wine too many. The conversation between them was a little stilted – settling unevenly over the topics and names that they were trying to avoid – but they smiled and laughed. And even if they were thinking about it, neither of them mentioned Bryce’s Thanksgiving party in sophomore year, and how they had gotten so drunk that they had decided it was a good idea when Bryce dared them all to go skinny-dipping in the creek that ran through the woods behind his house, where Monty had leapt from a rock into the shallow water below, and they had been convinced they were going to find him, broken-necked, dead and naked somewhere downstream in the moment before he had resurfaced, shouting at the cold temperature of the water, and they had all jumped in after him. 

As the camber of the bay swung the road toward the south-east, Justin took another sip of his lemonade, the bridge of his nose crinkling at the sugary coating it left on his tongue, and rolled the Prius past Jess’s block, glancing along the street to where her house sat, the cream and green porch just visible behind the poplar tree in the neighbour’s yard. Jess’s family had spent Thanksgiving in Seattle, house-hunting in preparation for her mother’s new job and her father’s transfer, which would be processed at the end of senior year. The Jensens had been more than happy for her to join Caleb and Tony as guests at their Thanksgiving lunch, but Jess had smiled politely and said that she had already accepted an invitation from the Standalls. Justin got it. As much as he and Alex would never see eye to eye, least of all on the subject of Jess, he understood shared trauma, especially when it came to shared trauma connected with Bryce. 

Jess listened attentively and empathetically and assured him that all of his feelings were valid, when he tried to explain to her how it felt to lose a brother, even one who had hurt him – both of them – so grievously. But he realised that, as much as she wished she could, she didn’t understand. Bryce would always be the monster who hurt her. 

And he _was_ that, Justin knew. 

But it wasn’t all he was. Not to him. 

Jess was excited and optimistic about his rehabilitation placement, maybe more than anyone else – except Lainie, of course. She had read all of the information materials, pointing out the photographs in every brochure and pamphlet, enthusing over the activities and programs that the facility offered like it was a prestigious college or a summer camp, and not a place where people went when they were sicker than medicine and doctors and traditional support structures alone could fix, and desperate to get better. Honestly, Justin was hopeful, but a little terrified. The detox he knew he could manage. It fucking sucked, and he wished that he could have had the tough-love comfort of Sheri by his side through it, like that first time, but he would survive. Sheri had assured him of as much, when he had dropped her a hesitant text a few days ago to let her know that he would be uncontactable for a few weeks, and she had called him straight back, her voice full of warm and unreserved encouragement, even as her college classmates called to her in the background. It was the rest that was frightening. The talking, the sharing, the accepting of blame and letting go of his mistakes. The acknowledgement of what he had done, and what had been done to him. Letting people in. Telling them about his mother. About Jess, and the ways he had failed her. About Jaime. About Bryce.

How the fuck could he talk about losing his brother and his best friend, when that same person had done something heinous to the girl that he loved? How could he say those things, knowing and not being able to explain how, to protect that girl, Justin himself had done something horrifying, by working to shift the blame for that boy’s death to someone else?

Justin knew that he was skating toward dangerous territory now. 

If he followed the road he was currently on, within minutes, he would be in his old neighbourhood and, even as a junkie less than a day out from checking into rehab, he knew that was a bad idea. Flicking on the blinker, Justin made a right at the next intersection at the crest of the hill, and headed down the steep slope toward the bottom. The street was quiet, the houses small and run down but, for the most part, neatly kept. Behind aging fences, some of the gardens were full of flowers, the wooden posts wound with tendrils of jasmine, and fragrant lavender thriving with dusty purple blooms. At the next junction, a woman stood on the footpath, waiting for the Golden Retriever at the end of the leash she held to finish sniffing at the foot of a tree. 

As Justin made another right, he spotted a beat-up little yellow Volkswagen parked against the curb, on the opposite side of the street from a familiar Jeep Wrangler with handwritten **For Sale** signs taped inside the windows and windscreen. At the foot of the driveway, a yard or so from the Wrangler, a petite blonde stood in jeans with the knees torn and frayed, a pretty floral blouse and ballet flats, a skateboard hanging from one hand. The loose curls of her hair were pinned back from her face and, tucked in the hinge of a pin, a coil of jasmine was secured behind her ear. 

As he neared, she didn’t move, or even seem aware of the approaching car at all, her dark blue eyes on the Jeep and her expression distant. 

Justin eased the Prius to a stop behind the Volkswagen. Biting the inside of his lip, he watched the girl, standing outside of the little green house, and wondered if he was overreaching. Maybe she was simply looking for an upgrade from her little yellow hatchback, and would probably snare the Wrangler for a good price. There were no minimum amounts listed on the signs – clearly, they just wanted rid of it, as quickly as they could find someone to take it off their hands. But he knew that the possibility of a bargain wasn’t what had drawn her. Despite that she stood still and quiet, as if she had paused in the middle of a thought and couldn’t quite manage to free herself from it, her expression blank and her mind far from where she was standing at the road’s edge, her grip on the trucks of the skateboard in her hand was white-knuckled and shaking. 

Justin reached to turn the keys in the ignition, killing the engine. Leaving the half-empty cup of lemonade in the cup-holder and the windows wound down, contemplating absently that Clay would kill him if he found a bee in the car in the morning, attracted by the overly sweet drink, he tucked the keys into his pocket, and got out, closing the door of the Prius with a soft click. 

The girl made no indication that she heard his footsteps as he crossed the street, and he stepped to the left to raise a hand in a small wave at her periphery, hoping not to startle her.

“Hey, Chloe.”

Chloe blinked, turning, and seemed a little surprised to see him standing beside her. Closer, Justin realised that her eyes were bloodshot, as if she hadn’t been sleeping well, or had maybe been crying. Justin tucked his hands into the front pockets of the sweater he wore over a white and navy plaid shirt, offering a small smile. 

“Oh,” she said softly, ducking her head to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear, the loose honey-toned curl coiling with the jasmine pinned there. “Hi, Justin.”

The answer was clear, but he couldn’t help asking the question.

“You okay?”

“Um…” Chloe smiled, very briefly, as if by polite instinct, the gesture fleeting and swept aside when she took a long breath, as though she hadn’t inhaled fully in a long time. Her gaze cut sideways to him, and she shook her head. “No. Not really.” She said, then asked. “Are you?”

Justin lifted his shoulders in a shrug. 

“No.”

Chloe nodded, sadly and in understanding, and her gaze trailed back to the Jeep. Parked underneath the huge old tree that stood at the front edge of the property, leaves had collected along the windscreen wipers and in the lower window seals, and were scattered around the perimeter of the vehicle, a ring of damp, glossy green marking how long it had been since it had last been driven. Justin wondered if it had been parked in that same spot, when the sheriff’s deputies had arrived that night, or if one of his parents had moved it out of the way, putting it out on the street, as far as they could manage from the house. 

He wondered what they might have done with the other things – his jerseys and baseball uniforms, the blanket he had shoved into Justin’s hands to wrap around himself the night that he slept on his bedroom floor, the glasses left on his bedside cabinet. 

Like pressing on a bruise, unable to resist the painful instinct to know, Justin had spent an evening at Clay’s laptop while the other boy was out, looking up what happened to the remains of people who were not claimed by their family members after they died. It had been oddly hollowing to learn how many there were – over a thousand every year in a county the size of Los Angeles alone, many of them homeless and living on the outskirts of society - and that some were not unidentified or otherwise unknown, but simply unwanted. Their cremated remains were held for three years, and then interred to a mass grave in a county-owned plot, the plaque placed above them offering nothing more personal to mark their final resting place than the year that they had passed. 

Justin hadn’t slept much that night. 

Swallowing against the uncomfortable tightening in his throat, he gestured casually to the skateboard in Chloe’s hand.

“You skate?”

Chloe glanced down at the board, held with an old, learned familiarity. She smiled a little, her cheek dimpling as she ran the pad of her thumb over a tear in the edge of the grip tape.

“I used to,” she said and, with a slightly embarrassed smile. “I’m a little rusty.” She raised an eyebrow, her expression registering curious interest. “Do you?”

Justin couldn’t help but chuckle. Sometimes, it felt like he spent more time carrying his skateboard around than he ever did riding it. Certainly, Jaime had been a lot more natural and skilled on it than he had been, but it had become a sort of treasured possession, in a way. It had been a little awkward to lug about all day, but proved a useful way to shorten a trip in the cold or rain, a handy defensive weapon in a pinch, a convenient place to sit when the concrete was wet or frozen, and a strange sort of security blanket, as all of his scant possessions had been, during that time. And like most things, he had cast it off for a few dollars, traded it away to meet an immediate need, and then missed it, desperately, later, when he realised that he had nothing left to ground him, nothing to prove he was real, that he existed, nothing left to hold on to. 

Justin rubbed a hand across the back of his neck, smiling awkwardly. 

“I was never any good at it, but I can manage to keep from falling off, most of the time.” 

Chloe smiled, looking down at the board.

“Monty taught me.”

Justin tried not to let the surprise register too clearly in his expression. Although Monty had been carrying a skateboard, that first weekend of freshman year when they had all been summoned to the Walker house to audition for positions in Bryce’s court, he couldn’t recall having ever seen the other boy actually ride it. Not long after that weekend, he had torn around on a banged-up, unregistered, second-hand dirt bike, terrorising the town with the hornet-drone of its engine and the dirty belch of its exhaust, half the time treating sidewalks, nature strips and public parks like roads if it meant getting where he wanted to go more quickly and directly. It seemed to suit him much more, the speed and careless noise of that dirty old bike. Justin found it easier to picture the other boy swinging a skateboard into the face of someone who had slighted him, than to imagine him smoothly cruising the streets of Evergreen County, his stance loose and calm, as he leaned into curves and turns. 

And Chloe? Poised, thoughtful, carefully put together Chloe – on a skateboard – being taught how to kick-flip and grind rails, by Monty?

He wasn’t sure what to make of any of it. 

Chloe glanced up and noticed the puzzlement in his expression. There was a hesitation in her shoulders, instinctive and habitual, which she seemed to consciously shake herself free of, speaking clearly and meeting his gaze directly when she spoke, as if she were saying the words for the first time, and wanted to make sure that her meaning could not be mistaken. 

“He was my best friend.”

It was unexpected, but so clearly heartfelt that Justin found that he wasn’t surprised. He never would have guessed at a connection between them, would never have even considered it, if he hadn’t happened upon her standing there, outside of the little green house. And yet, Justin felt like he understood, perhaps more than anyone else might have. 

It didn’t have to make sense. 

It shouldn’t have made sense, that the son of one of the richest families in the county wanted to be friends with him, a grubby little eight-year-old urchin wearing the same clothes and bruises to school as he had the day before. It shouldn’t have made sense that, after everything that happened between them, after all of the ways that Bryce had hurt him, in the context of all of the people he cared about who had been wronged by the other boy, and all of the painful, shameful things that Justin had done and regretted as a result, that when the news of his death had been announced, his reaction had been a sorrow so deep and strong that it had slammed his heart down into his stomach hard enough to drive bile into his throat. 

And it made him angry and frustrated and guilty, to feel that way, especially when Clay had stood opposite him on the football field and looked at him with confusion and concern, unable to fathom how anyone – especially, how Justin – could feel anything but relief that a monster like Bryce was gone. 

But he was helpless to feel any other way.

So, he got it. 

He understood the hesitation in Chloe’s shoulders, the way that she seemed, all at once, brittle with grief and braced for his judgement. He felt the challenge and the conflict in the sad smile she offered as she explained.

“We met at a tea party,” She glanced at the tree, to her right, and Justin thought, in the tiny snippet of memory he managed to sketch out from the morning he had made the desperate climb over her back fence, and had paused on her driveway to pull on his sneakers, that a similar tree stood in the front yard of Chloe’s house, on the opposite side of the block. “The day my mom and I moved in. We were six. He just… came and sat with me, like we had always been friends.”

Justin couldn’t help but smile a little, as well, at the thought.

All of those ashes – all of those unidentified and unwanted people, placed together in a shared plot at the end of their time – they had all been children, once. They had all had families, and parents. They had all had a future, or at least a present. All of them, he hoped, at some point during their lives, had had someone who cared about them, for a time. 

“My little sister is taking lessons, down at the skate park,” Chloe said, looking down at her board, and then up at him, a hesitantly hopeful smile at the corner of her mouth. “I’m supposed to go pick her up. Would you-“ she paused, biting her lip, but decided to press on. “Would you want to come for a ride?”

Justin wasn’t sure if his answer was for her, or for him, or maybe for someone else, who wasn’t with them, but he smiled back, lifting his shoulders in a shrug.

“Sure,” he said, gesturing to the skateboard in her hands. “But, I don’t have a board anymore.”

Without ceremony or hesitation, Chloe passed him her skateboard. It was well-worn, the grip tape reapplied over time, the edges of the wooden frame scuffed and dinged, the wheels scratched and grazed by years of use. The underside was plastered with stickers – emo bands and graffiti insignia, skate brand logos, a pink tea set and a ballerina, and a series of animals wearing colourful flower crowns, a cat, a rabbit, a lion and a tiger and a bear, all drawn tattoo-style with distinctive rosy cheeks. It was lightweight but not any smaller than the one he had ridden in Oakland, and Justin set it down gently on the footpath, working the board back and forth beneath one sneaker to test its balance. 

Chloe turned to the Jeep and, as Justin watched, glancing anxiously at the little green house perched at the top of the sloping front yard, unzipped one side of the soft canopy, lifting it open with practiced familiarity. She reached into the storage space behind the rear seats, and from beneath a mostly empty Liberty Tigers duffel bag and a black hooded sweater left turned inside out, she pulled a second skateboard. This one was just as well-loved, scuffed and scratched at its edges and scraped on both axles from grinding the edges of brick garden beds. The stickers on the underside were less colourful and not quite so deliberately arranged – punk band logos and graffiti insignia, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a skeleton swinging a baseball bat, and the roaring Liberty Tigers logo. After drawing the zippered closure back into place, Chloe ran her fingertips over the stickers, tracing their edges gently and thoughtfully. 

Justin thought of the day of Bryce’s funeral, of sitting on the edge of Bryce’s bed, in the bedroom upstairs, after that painfully awkward moment when he had bumped into Clay in the hallway and had been certain that, if the other boy hadn’t been desperate to hide what he was doing, the clunky lie he had told about searching for the bathroom would have been jarringly obvious. The bottle of oxy that he had found in the medicine cabinet in Bryce’s bathroom had been a guilty weight in his jacket pocket as he traced the pad of his thumb around the edge of the face of the other boy’s watch. It had been left on his bedside table, as if he had simply taken it off to go swimming, or take a shower, and he would be back to put it on, like he did every day.

For something that had felt so incredibly heavy in his hands, that afternoon, in the quiet of Bryce’s bedroom, it had been surprisingly easy to hand over to Seth in exchange for a little twist of alfoil, the movements required to pluck it from the pocket of his jeans and release it into the dealer’s dirty palm mechanical and simple, despite the violent wrench in his chest as he watched him slip it into the breast pocket of his shirt with a filthy smirk.

Chloe set the skateboard down in the road, gently, as if it were fragile, handling it probably more carefully than it looked like it had ever been treated in its lifetime. She placed her right foot at the nose of the board, tested it there, but seemed uncertain with the goofy-style stance, and stepped over the board to stand with her left foot leading, instead. Balancing comfortably with both feet on the board, she turned a look over her shoulder at him. 

“It’s this way,” Chloe said, and Justin nodded, pushing off cautiously from the edge of the curb. 

It wasn’t easy, but there was a familiarity to it, once he got used to the flex and give in the axles and mapped out the space that he had available to position his feet and support his balance. Chloe didn’t seem to be in any hurry, moving calmly and gracefully, the light floral material of her blouse and the loose curls of her honeyed hair shifting in the gentle wind as she navigated the streets and footpaths with practised ease, weaving loosely back and forth across the breadth of the quiet suburban roads at a pace that Justin was able to match comfortably. The neighbourhood around them was peaceful, nothing but the low drone of a faraway lawnmower, the distant barking of a dog in a fenced backyard, and the gritty hum of the blacktop beneath their boards. The air was crisp and a little damp with coming rain and, when he paused behind her at a corner, waiting for a car to pass before they crossed an intersection toward the shouts and laughter that echoed from the bowl of the skate park, Justin could smell the sweet perfume of the coil of jasmine pinned in Chloe’s hair.

Chloe dismounted the board smoothly, toeing the tail to tip it upright and catch it by the nose in her right hand. Justin, far less confident in his ability, stooped to scoop up her board, following her as she weaved across the park with familiar confidence, skirting easily around kids and teenagers on boards and bikes. To one side, amongst the low rails and ramps, a guy in his twenties, wearing shorts that bared his heavily tattooed legs despite the cool weather, was standing with a small cluster of pre-teens and children, awkward but enthusiastic in their helmets and padding, watching with rapt attention as he showed them the bottom of his board, pointing out the way the wheels would shift as they performed the manoeuvre he was teaching them. 

A little girl at the edge of the group – Justin guessed her age at maybe eight or nine – with a long dark braid worn over one shoulder and the same ocean blue eyes as Chloe, turned a look over her shoulder. She lifted her hand in a small wave, which Chloe returned, but her eyes lingered on Justin as he followed Chloe to the edge of the bowl. Choosing a place a safe distance from the smoothed edges where kids entered and exited the dips and curves of the sunken space, Chloe set the board down, and sat on it with her legs crossed, her ballet flats balanced on the rim of the concrete structure. Gently, Justin set her skateboard down next to her, and eased himself onto it, propping his elbows on his drawn-up knees.

For a long moment, neither of them spoke, and Justin was grateful for it, as the memories washed over him. Sitting outside of Dallas’s motel room, his hands trembling and his insides quaking with need, and his mind replaying a slideshow of his mother - her pale, slender hands, flecked with track marks, her eyes, huge and dark and shadowed, but fixed on him in the dim shadows of his bedroom after he had a nightmare, when she would crouch at the side of his mattress and brush the hair back from his face, rubbing gentle patterns across his forehead with the pad of her thumb until he slipped back to sleep. Perched at the top of the half-pipe in the junkyard skate park in Oakland, the echoing roar of skateboard wheels in the partially enclosed space, floating comfortably on a couple of oxy and watching Jaime skate, lit up bright and full of confidence, the way he was when he was when he was himself, and the burst of warmth in his chest when the other boy caught his eye as he sailed past, and smiled. 

Next to him, Chloe watched the riders, quiet and sad. 

“When we were kids,” Justin said, his eyes on a boy with a royal blue bmx bike “-and I was having a rough time at home, like, if my mom’s latest boyfriend was being an asshole, or whatever – Bryce would suggest that we race our bikes.” The corner of his mouth ticked up in a smile as they watched the boy pump his feet on the pedals, aiming for the steep curve of the inside of the bowl. “Well, they were both his bikes. He gave me one, like it didn’t even mean anything, like it was a piece of gum or something.” The bike flew up the side of the curve, the boy’s expression entirely calm as the tyres left contact with the concrete and he swung in a short, graceful arc, hurtling back down into the bowl smoothly and fearlessly. “On those days, Bryce always let me win.” Justin lifted his shoulder in a shrug. “I sort of knew he was doing it. But it still felt so good, at the time.”

Sitting beside him on Monty’s skateboard, her fingers threading casually through the loose strands at the tears in the knees of her jeans, her fingernails painted ballet-slipper pink, Chloe nodded slowly. 

“He was good at that,” Chloe agreed with a small smile. “Knowing when you needed to feel better, more than anything else.”

Her voice was calm and even, but heavy, and Justin glanced at her sidelong, cheeks flushing.

“Sorry,” he said quickly, awkwardly. “I didn’t mean-“ He shook his head, scrubbing a hand through his hair, guilt kicking him low in the gut as he realised what he was saying, and who to. “I know he did horrible things to you. And he was manipulative. And cruel. And-“

Chloe lifted her shoulders in a shrug beneath her pretty blouse.

“And even despite that, he could be kind. And generous,” she said, earnestly. “He could make you feel like he cared, when it seemed like maybe no one else did.” She glanced at him, her expression understanding. “I don’t know if he was able to care about other people, you know, like, the way anyone else would. But I want to think he did his best, with what he could.”

It bothered Justin, that what she said made sense. He didn’t want to understand, or to accept that it might be true. That, despite all the ways he had hurt him, Bryce had cared for him, as much as he had the capacity to, and as twisted and self-serving as what he had been able to offer had been. 

Justin shook his head, bitterly. 

“I wish I could hate him.” 

It would have been easier than this. 

Easier than feeling angry because he felt sad. Easier than the way that Clay looked at him, blankly and with lips parted around questions that he hesitated to ask. _How can you feel that way, after everything he did? How can you miss someone who was so inarguably monstrous and cruel, to you and to people you love? Why do you still refer to him as your brother, when he was never that, not truly, not like I am?_ Justin was powerless to explain any of it. He had no answers, no explanations, no reason that made sense outside of his own heart and his own head. 

“I don’t,” Chloe answered, looking out across the skate park. 

At the far end, a little girl wearing a pink helmet and shin pads wobbled on her razor scooter as she followed an older boy with the same dark hair – a brother, perhaps – around the edge of the bowl, trying to keep up with the quick, confident pace that he kept on his skateboard. And even though it seemed conflicted, the boy obviously hoping to save face in front of the other children and teenagers sharing the park, he looked over his shoulder from time to time, to make certain that she was still following, and hadn’t fallen. 

Chloe smiled, a little mischievously. “He would hate anyone knowing this, but Monty used to help me braid my hair.”

Justin couldn’t help the snort of laughter that burst from him, and looked at Chloe with a grin.

“Monty?” he asked, a little sarcastically, clearwater blue eyes bright with amusement. “We’re talking about the same guy, right? Plaid shirts, freckles, gay jokes, punching someone every time you turned around?”

Chloe chuckled, her eyes sad but lit with warmth.

“One and the same,” she confirmed with a smile and a nod. “He helped me practice ballet, and babysit my little sister. We made paper dolls – he would cut them out and I’d colour them in, because he never chose the pretty colours-“ Chloe laughed, and Justin found himself laughing, as well. “If I let him draw their faces, he’d give them monster teeth or drag-queen makeup.”

It felt nice, to laugh. To share, and not to be afraid that, although they wanted to, the person on the other side of the truth couldn’t understand.

“Bryce was, like, obsessed with having a pet, when I met him.” Justin offered, with a smile. “But his dad always said ‘no’. I don’t know if he was allergic or just being an asshole.” He shrugged. Both were equally as likely. “So, Bryce made friends with the old lady who lived on the corner. She had one of those big, long-haired cats that looks like it splatted its face flat running into a wall or something.” He grinned brightly at the memory. “And Bryce fucking adored that thing. I’d just want to go swimming or whatever but every week he’d be in that old lady’s lounge room, brushing that fucking cat.” Justin shook his head slowly. “He was so bummed when it got old and died. I think he felt like he’d let it down. Like, he thought if he cared about it enough, it’d live forever.”

He hadn’t seen her, out in her garden, as he drove past earlier, but Justin thought of the old lady who lived alone in the big house on the corner, and how she would offer him wrapped candies from the glass bowl that she kept on the sideboard in the carefully arranged sunroom at the front of the house, while Bryce sat on the sofa and brushed the cat’s long fur, ignoring both of them and the look of grouchy frustration on the cat’s face from being subjected to his care and attention. The weekend after the cat had passed away, the had borrowed shovels from the landscapers who looked after the grounds for Bryce’s parents, and walked down to the house on the corner to dig a hole in the old lady’s back garden for her, at the foot of a hedge of pink and white roses. 

Bryce had always seemed reluctant to go back there, after that, quickening his pace or pumping his legs harder on the pedals of his bike whenever they passed, but Justin still liked talking to the old lady, if she was out when he happened by. Although he had been far less fond of the cat than Bryce had, when she had asked him if he wanted to see, he had followed her through the side gate to the garden bed in the back corner of the yard, and looked down at the little stone plaque that one of her grandchildren had ordered for her online, engraved with the cat’s name, the years of its life, and a little pair of paw-prints. 

“You remember that time you fell over the fence into our backyard?” Chloe asked, smiling at the shared memory, and Justin chuckled at the thought of her shocked expression behind her sunglasses when he had come tumbling over the wooden palings, landing in a winded heap in the garden bed. 

“Yeah,” he nodded, thinking back to that handful of days during summer school, and how much they had meant to him, despite what they had cost them both. “Bryce was on vacation and my mom’s boyfriend was being a fucking asshole and I didn’t have anywhere to sleep.” It was more than he had admitted to most people, outside of the Jensens, Jess, and Bryce. A secret that he had tried to keep almost his whole life, desperately ashamed of the distance between himself and others, letting go of his pride and dignity only when he had no other option. “I didn’t say anything to Monty, but he figured it out. He snuck me into his room and I slept on the floor.” He shook his head, forehead creasing with a frown. “His dad was so fucking pissed.”

Justin looked down, picking at the fraying seam where his jeans had caught beneath the heel of his sneakers over time, thinking of that night game in junior year when everything felt like it had gone wrong. Zach couldn’t play – his dad was back in the hospital – and it was left to Justin, as co-captain, to lead the team. Justin had been off his game, distracted by thoughts of Zach and argument he had had with his mother that afternoon when he had arrived home from school and found Seth, blissfully and deceptively absent from their lives for weeks at that point, sitting at the kitchen table as if he owned the apartment. He had fumbled and struggled and ultimately, the visiting team had wiped the floor with them. Frustrated and disappointed and feeling frayed, Justin had shrugged off the invitations to parties and get-togethers. 

He didn’t know where he would go – he wasn’t sure it was a good idea to go home – but he felt like he wanted to be alone. 

He had lingered in the change-rooms until he was sure that everyone else had left, and then headed to the bus stop, the collar of his varsity jacket turned up against the driving rain but providing little protection from its chill sting on his skin. He had sat under the scant shelter that the bus stop offered, his cold hands shoved into his pockets and staring into the dark, wet street, until a splash of rainwater surging from the gutter barely missed the toes of his sneakers, thrown up by the tyres of the Jeep Wrangler coming to a sudden stop in front of him, and he looked up with a frown as Monty wound the drivers’ side window down.

“The fuck are you doing out here?” the other boy had asked with a frown, tipping his head toward the passenger seat. “C’mon. I’ll give you a ride home.”

Justin had half expected him to comment – he never held back when they played football together and he thought that another player’s contributions weren’t up to par - but Monty hadn’t offered any opinions or jokes about their dismal performance on the court, or asked him any questions about why he had played so terribly. And Justin had attempted to repay him the favour, sitting quietly in the passenger seat when, after a curse and a twenty-minute diversion to the parking lot of the hardware store where his father’s truck had run a flat, he had tried to ignore the altercation between them on the other side of the rain-soaked window, and followed Monty’s lead when the other boy got back in the car, sodden and silent. 

Now, thinking of the _For Sale_ signs in the windows of the Jeep, and the bare, impersonal cell that he had spent months living in during his remand to juvenile detention, and the unlisted grave, shared with hundreds of strangers, equally as unwanted and uncared for, Justin wished he would have said something. 

Maybe saying something – anything – would have made everything different. 

He bit the inside of his lip, clasping his hands where they hung over his knees. 

“I wasn’t his friend. But I’m glad you were.” He said, meeting Chloe’s gaze when she looked at him. “I’m glad he had someone, other than Bryce.”

Her expression shifted, and it wasn’t relief, or comfort, exactly, although both seemed to be present, in small measures. Mostly, she looked sad, and guilty, her eyes dark with remorse. Justin wondered if she ever thought about the last thing that she said to Monty, or to Bryce. Whether she regretted it. Whether she knew that, the night that he had died, Bryce and Zach had been butting heads on the field, figuratively and literally, and that he and Monty had been right there, prising them apart, as her name was thrown around, as the two of them argued over who had stolen her, who had supported her, who had deserved her. That, in the end, a lot of what had happened to Bryce – what had truly happened to him – was inextricably tangled with her, and what she had been to those boys, and what they had done to her. 

He hoped not. Justin hoped that she would never have to carry that burden, the way that he did, now, knowing that, with just one or two small choices – maybe everything could have been different. That something as insignificant as picking up his phone when Jessica had tried to call him that night, or answering a question differently - _are we friends?_ , asked plainly and openly, that morning in the pool house – might have meant that both boys, broken and blackened inside and barely eighteen, could have lived.

“They were both complicated people,” Chloe said, and then was quiet for a while, leaning forward to rest her chin on her arms where they were folded across her knees. Eventually, she cast a sidelong look at Justin. “I know what Monty did. What they both did. And I don’t think it should be forgiven, or forgotten.” She took a slow breath, and looked away across the bowl. “But I can’t see them only for the horrible things they were capable of. I can’t ignore the people that they were.” She lifted her shoulder in a shrug. “To me.”

Justin thought he understood, better than anyone else might have been able to. 

Bryce would always and never not be a monster.

And he would always and never not be his brother. 

The proportions might change and shift over time, and with consideration, and hindsight, and through grieving and acceptance, but he would always be both. 

“I hope, one day,” Justin said, sorrow like a cold and heavy stone in his chest, worn soft and smooth to the touch from the amount of times he had turned it over and held it in his hands. “People don’t only remember the things I did wrong. The things I regret.”

Chloe just nodded her agreement, and sat quietly beside him.

Around them, kids and teenagers ranging in age from six or eight – as old as they had been when they had met the boys now both gone from their lives – to eighteen and older, swerved and thundered and dipped and flew, chasing those moments where there was no room for thought, no space for regret or fear, just the sensation of the air around them, and the movement, and the next breath, and the one that would come after that. 

It was simple and perfect. 

“Chloe?”

Justin followed Chloe’s gaze, turning a look over his shoulder. The little girl with the long dark braid from the skateboarding lesson stood a few feet behind them. She was dressed in hand-me-down jeans and a plaid sweater in shades of pink and grey. She had Chloe’s slender, willowy build, her dark blue eyes and delicate, heart-shaped face, but was proportionately taller and sturdier, with an olive complexion and dark brown hair tugging free of a wind-torn braid where it trailed from beneath a black plastic skating helmet plastered with stickers, the Liberty Tigers logo applied carefully to its surface above her right left ear. She looked at Justin guardedly, the perfect replica of an expression he had seen before – one that recognised him not for who he was but what – aimed at him where he stood at Bryce’s shoulder in the locker rooms after football tryouts, that first week of freshman year. 

Chloe smiled at the younger girl and levered herself to standing, flipping Monty’s board up on its tail and propping it against her leg as she turned to face her. 

“Justin, this is my little sister, Amelia,” she introduced, gesturing to Justin as he got to his feet as well. “Amelia, this is Justin.”

The girl looked at him, her gaze sweeping unabashedly from his face to his sneakers, lingering for a moment on her sister’s skateboard, laying at his feet. Her glance swept across to the board that Chloe held at her side, her expression registering recognition as she took in the spread of stickers across the underside of the skateboard. Her attention returned to Justin, her gaze questioning. 

“Are you a friend of Monty’s?”

It was a query spoken forwardly and openly, and felt almost as wishful as it did accusatory, as if half of her hoped that he would confirm what she suspected, and the other half dreaded the possibility of it – that he might be some sort of usurper or replacement, attempting to take the other boy’s place at her sister’s side. If she noticed that she spoke in the present tense, she didn’t attempt to correct it, and neither did Justin or Chloe. 

“Uh,” Justin hesitated, torn between what he knew to be the truth, and what he wished it could have been. “We-“

Chloe smiled at him, kindly, and then turned to her sister, answering for him. 

“Justin, Bryce, Monty and I – we were all friends,” she said, simply, and it wasn’t exactly right, but it wasn’t wrong, either. More importantly, it seemed to be what the little girl needed to hear. She looked down again at the skateboards at their feet, her own pinned beneath one sneaker, the grip tape mostly black but striped thickly with pink to mark where she should place her feet. Her gaze assessing, she looked up at Justin and raised an eyebrow. 

“You know how to do a kick-flip?”

Justin chuckled, surprised and amused by the question. He glanced at Chloe, who only smiled and shook her head, ruefully.

“I do not know how to do a kick-flip, no,” Justin admitted, cheek dimpling as he returned his attention to the little girl. He lifted his shoulder in a shrug beneath his sweater. “Sorry.”

Amelia cocked her head, indicating the empty concrete space where the lesson had been taking place.

“I can teach you how, if you want?”

If wasn’t how he had imagined spending his last afternoon in Evergreen before checking into rehab. But it sounded kind of nice. 

Justin grinned, and nodded.

“Yeah. Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it. Dizzy is officially finished.
> 
> This is the single longest fic (ff or otherwise) that I've ever written, and I honestly wouldn't have made it this far without all of the support and encouragement from everyone who has interacted with me as part of the ao3 community. I can't even express how much it means to me.
> 
> Biggest thank you and virtual hugs to comfortwriter28, beekitties, sono and Filisa - I am so grateful for all of the lovely people that I've met through this community and the 13rw fandom, but especially to each of you, who have been so supportive of this fic, have provided hours of chats, and who I genuinely consider friends, even if we live on opposite sides of the planet :)
> 
> It is bittersweet to be posting this last chapter, but I'm glad to have the chance to do it before bub arrives (hopefully right on time later this week!). I hope to have the opportunity to continue writing, although maybe not something on quite the scale of Dizzy, once we get settled into a new routine. In the meantime, please feel free to reach out here, or on reddit (I have the same username) or at delacruz87.ao3@gmail.com. 
> 
> And just because I can, I'll give one last plug for a little bit of Dizzy nostalgia, with [ Monty & Chloe ](https://www.reddit.com/r/13ReasonsWhy/comments/h7w6hf/final_attempt_to_post_this_fanart_reddit_sucks/), as drawn by sono <3
> 
> Thank you again for sticking with this fic right to the end. I appreciate every one of you and wish you all the best.
> 
> Bye, for now <3


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